SC refuses to stop fuel loading in Kundankulam plant (Second Lead)September 13th, 2012 - 10:04 pm ICT by IANS
New Delhi, Sep 13 (IANS) Declining to put on hold for now the loading of fuel rods in one of the two reactors of Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, the Supreme Court Thursday said it would hear Sep 20 the plea seeking to restrain the central government.
The apex court’s decision came as hundreds of people from Tamil Nadu’s Idinthakarai village, the epicentre of the protests against the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KNPP), stood in the sea water Thursday to protest moves to load uranium fuel in one of the two reactors.
The apex court bench of Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice Dipak Misra declined to pass any immediate order on a petition seeking to restrain the government and Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) from going ahead with the loading of nuclear fuel rods in the reactor of the plant.
The petitioner alleged that the 17 safety measures recommended by an expert panel had not been implemented.
“Whether these 17 safety measures had to be taken before the commissioning of the plant,” Justice Misra asked Attorney General G.E. Vahanvati.
“They are the third (layer) of safety steps by way of abundant caution for safety enhancement,” Vahanvati told the court.
The court said it would hear Sep 20 the plea seeking to restrain the central government from loading nuclear fuel rods in the reactor of the plant.
The judges said that they wanted to go through the two judgments of the Madras High Court not accepting petitioner P. Sundarrajan’s plea.
Counsel Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioner, pressed for an order restraining the government from going ahead with the loading of the fuel rods but Justice Misra asked “was there any stay at any point of time”.
Sundarrajan, an IT professional, moved the apex court Tuesday contending that the government should not go ahead with the loading of the fuel rods till the 17 safety steps recommended by an expert committee were implemented.
Mentioning the matter before the bench, Bhushan told the court that the expert committee was set up by the government after Fukushima nuclear power plant accident in Japan.
Bhushan told the court that out of the 17 safety steps recommended by the expert committee only six had been implemented.
As Justice Radhakrishnan inquired about the time gap between the loading of the fuel rods and the actual commissioning of the plant, Vahanvati said that it would take two months.
Bhushan, however, told the court that once the enriched uranium fuel rods were loaded in the reactor then there would be no scope for going back.
The attorney general told the court that the Tamil Nadu government had certain reservations about the safety of the plant and it had set up an expert committee headed by former chairman, Atomic Energy Commission M.R. Srinivasan, which had cleared the KNPP for commissioning.
As Justice Radhakrishan told the attorney general that the petitioner was not against the commission of the KNPP, Vahanvati read from the Madras High Court verdict, under challenge, “…there is no impediment for the NPCIL to proceed with the project and the safety measures have been satisfied and clearances have been obtained from various authorities.”
- SC refuses to stop fuel loading in Kundankulam plant (Lead) - Sep 13, 2012
- Kudankulam safety steps a matter of public interest, says SC - Sep 20, 2012
- Madras HC seeks details of Kudankulam power project - Aug 21, 2012
- Kudankulam project gets Madras High Court's green signal (Lead) - Aug 31, 2012
- SC refuses to stop fuel loading in Kundankulam plant - Sep 13, 2012
- SC moved against Kudankulam plant (Lead) - Sep 11, 2012
- SC moved against Kudankulam plant - Sep 11, 2012
- Court frowns on ministers over Kudankulam launch date - Aug 16, 2012
- Madras High Court reserves order on Kudankulam - Aug 23, 2012
- Petitions against Kudankulam reactors dismissed by Madras High Court - Aug 31, 2012
- Kudankulam n-plant a step closer to going on stream - May 12, 2012
- AERB clears fuel loading in Kudankulam nuclear reactor - Aug 10, 2012
- Top nuclear officials meet Kudankulam expert panel, protests on - Oct 29, 2011
- With atomic regulator's nod, Kudankulam reactor being fuelled (Second Lead) - Sep 21, 2012
- Removal of dummy fuel assemblies begins at Kudankulam - May 25, 2012
Tags: abundant caution, apex court, court bench, dipak, epicentre, expert committee, fuel loading, india ltd, madras high court, misra, npcil, nuclear fuel rods, nuclear power corporation, nuclear power plant, s radhakrishnan, safety enhancement, safety measures, safety steps, tamil nadu, uranium fuel


Dedicated to supporting the Manhattan Project National Historical Park and capturing the memories of the people who harnessed the energy of the atom.
Learn more about our mission
Browse our collection of oral histories with workers, families, service members, and more about their experiences in the Manhattan Project.
Tour some of the key locations of the Manhattan Project with an audio guide.
Floy Agnes "Aggie" (Naranjo Stroud) Lee was a biologist who worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos as a technician.
Lloyd Albert Quarterman (1918-1982) was an American chemist.
William Sterling "Deak" Parsons was a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy.


Effectively responding to a nuclear security event is a unique, complex, and potentially overwhelming situation requiring significant specialized resources. An effective response requires coordination and cooperation from all levels of government and international partners. To assist law enforcement in preparing to respond to nuclear security events INTERPOL has developed the Response to Radiological and Nuclear Incidents training course.
Response to radiological and nuclear incidents training
This training course is designed for investigators and other relevant personnel with responsibility for the initial operational management of crime scenes involving nuclear or other radiological materials.
The course helps participants understand the risks and challenges associated with working in a radiological crime scene environment. Understanding the roles and responsibilities involved, and working with radiation detection and personal protection equipment is practiced. Participants are also trained to recover and properly manage contaminated evidence.


I choose this topic, because I was unsure whether or not the United States did the right thing when they used Atomic bombs against Japan. When they did this they took hundreds of innocent lives, just to win a war and make a statement.
The cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki became famous for the dropping of the Atomic bombs these two cities had been used for military purposes up to that point in the war. A number of military camps were located next to Hiroshima, including the Fifth Division’s Headquarters and the Headquarters which commanded the defense of Southern Japan under Field Marshall Shunroku Hata’s 2nd General Army. Nagasaki was one of the largest seaports. It was very important to Japan during WWII, because it had a wide range of industrial activity, like the production of war materials and ships. Most of the building in Nagasaki were built with wood and had tile roofs. They were not built to hold up to explosions. The city had not been the target of serious attacks until the atom bomb.
Making the Bombs
With the help of Canada and the United Kingdom, the United States ran the top secret “Manhattan Project.” This was the development and testing of the first nuclear bombs. American physicist, J. Robert Oppenhiemer directed the research. Most of the work was done at the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. One of the bombs was made uranium-235. It was named “Little Boy”. It was a gun-type bomb, and would be the first ever used in warfare. At its height there was 130,000 people working on the bomb, at a cost of nearly $2 billion.
The first ever explosion of an Atomic bomb was the test on July 16, 1945, in an area called the Trinity site. It was a test run with a bomb called “Gadget”. It was an implosion bomb that was the same type as the Bomb called “Fat Man” that would be the 2nd nuclear bomb used in warfare.
Selecting the Targets
The target committee was also led by Oppenheimer at Los...


Nuke Waste Facility Could Go $40 Billion Over Budget. / :
Brianna Ehley, The Fiscal Times. May 5, 2015.
'The Department of Energy has already shoveled more than $4 billion into a facility in South Carolina intended to safely dispose of weaponsgrade plutonium left over from the Cold War. But management problems, oversight issues and high staff turnover rates has caused the project to go years behind schedule and billions over budget.'
U. S. Department of Energy: Savannah River environmental impact statements, 1990-.
'A collection of Department of Energy Environmental Impact Statements covering work at Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina.':
DOE-EIS-0062 Waste Management Operations, Savannah River Plant, Aiken, South Carolina, Double-Shell Tanks for Defense High-Level Radioactive Waste Storage
DOE-EIS-0108 L-Reactor Operation, Savannah River Plant, Aiken, S.C.
DOE-EIS-0121 Alternative Cooling Water Systems, Savannah River Plant
DOE-EIS-0147 Continued Operation of the K-,L-, and P- Reactors, Savannah River Site
DOE-EIS-0210 Waste Management Activities for Groundwater Protection Savannah River Plant
DOE-EIS-0220 Savannah River Site Interim Management of Nuclear Materials
DOE-EIS-0271 Construction and Operation of a Tritium Extraction Facility at the Savannah River Site


Georgian customs officers sent a car carrying a mixture of plutonium and beryllium back to Azerbaijan after foiling an attempt to smuggle the materials over the border, Georgian television reported on Tuesday.
Customs officials found the materials, which can be used in nuclear bombs, in what appeared to be a routine customs check as the car was driven over the border from Azerbaijan, the Imedi television station reported.
"Georgian customs detected a high level of radiation while checking one of the cars," Imedi reported. "They discovered plutonium-beryllium."
There were scant details about the find.
The car was sent back to Azerbaijan although smuggling nuclear materials is a crime under Georgian law. It was unclear if Azeri authorities had been informed.
"The decision to send it back was made," Soso Kakushadze, head of the environment ministry's radiation department, told Reuters.
"It was the right decision as it would have been very expensive to keep it in Georgia and special conditions are needed," he said.
Reports did not indicate where the plutonium and beryllium was from. Interior ministry officials declined to comment.
Used in most nuclear weapons
Plutonium is used in most nuclear weapons, but several kilograms are needed to make even a primitive atomic bomb.
Beryllium, a toxic metal, can be used to form a neutron initiator that triggers a nuclear explosion. It can be used to moderate nuclear reactions.
Georgian special services foiled an attempt by a Russian citizen to sell weapons-grade uranium for $1 million in Georgia in February 2006.
Radioactive materials were used to generate power in remote areas in Soviet times but during the chaos that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union many devices were abandoned.


A multi-institutional team, led by a group of investigators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, has been studying various SARS-CoV-2 protein targets, including the virus’s main protease. The feat has earned the team a finalist nomination for the Association of Computing Machinery, or ACM, Gordon Bell Special Prize for High Performance Computing-Based COVID-19 Research.
Radioactive isotopes power some of NASA’s best-known spacecraft. But predicting how radiation emitted from these isotopes might affect nearby materials is tricky
In the race to identify solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are joining the fight by applying expertise in computational science, advanced manufacturing, data science and neutron science.
The type of vehicle that will carry people to the Red Planet is shaping up to be “like a two-story house you’re trying to land on another planet.
Thanks in large part to developing and operating a facility for testing molten salt reactor (MSR) technologies, nuclear experts at the Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are now tackling the next generation of another type of clean energy—concentrating ...


The Dallas Morning News
Regulators: Leak didn’t require public notice
Officials sought more info from nuclear plant
Minnesota regulators knew four months ago that radioactive waste had leaked from a nuclear power plant in Monticello — but they didn’t announce anything about the leak until this week.
The delay in notifying the public about the November leak raised questions about public safety and transparency, but industry experts said Friday there was never a public health threat. They said Xcel Energy voluntarily notified state agencies and reported the leak of tritium to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission soon after it was confirmed and that the leak of 400,000 gallons of radioactive water never reached a threshold that would have required public notification.
“This is something that we struggle with because there is such concern with anything that is nuclear,” said Victoria Mitlyng, a spokesperson with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. “The concern is very, very understandable. That is why I want to make extra clear the fact that the public in Minnesota, the people, the community near the plant, was not and is not in danger.”
State officials said that while they knew of the leak in November, they waited to get more information before making a public announcement.
“We knew there was a presence of tritium in one monitoring well, however Xcel had not yet identified the source of the leak and its location,” Minnesota Pollution Control Agency spokesperson Michael Rafferty said Thursday. “Now that we have all the information about where the leak occurred, how much was released into groundwater and that contaminated groundwater had moved beyond the original location, we are sharing this information.”
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen that occurs naturally in the environment and is a common by-product of nuclear plant operations. It emits a weak form of beta radiation that does not travel very far and cannot penetrate human skin, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said a significant health risk would only occur if people consumed fairly high amounts of tritium. That risk is contained if the plume stays on the company’s site, which Xcel Energy and Minnesota officials said is the case.
If regulatory officials are sure it didn’t move off site, people shouldn’t have to worry about their safety, he said, adding that companies usually take action when onsite monitoring wells detect elevated levels of contaminants like tritium.
Mitlyng said there’s no official requirement for nuclear plants to report all tritium leaks to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Instead, Xcel Energy had previously agreed to report certain tritium leaks to the state. When Xcel Energy shares information with the state, it also shares it with the commission.
The commission posted a notification about the leak on its website Nov. 23, noting that the plant reported it to the state a day earlier. The report classified the leak as a nonemergency. The notice said the source of the tritium was being investigated at that time.
Beyond that, there was no widespread notification to the public before Thursday.
Mitlyng said there is no pathway for the tritium to get into drinking water.
Xcel said it has recovered about 25% of the spilled tritium so far, that recovery efforts will continue and that it will install a permanent solution this spring.


CNESTEN-Morocco, ARSN-Mauritania Foster Nuclear Energy Cooperation
Rabat – The National Center for Energy, Sciences and Nuclear Techniques (CNESTEN) and the National Authority for Radiation Protection, Safety and Nuclear Safety (ARSN) of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania concluded, on Thursday, a partnership agreement to strengthen cooperation ties in the peaceful use of nuclear applications in the African region.
Under this agreement, signed by Director General of CNESTEN Khalid EL Mediouri, and President of ARSN Ishagh Mohamed Moussa, the two institutions will strengthen the sharing of experiences and the building of capacities in the fields of nuclear and radiological safety and security, said on Friday a press release by the CNESTEN.
This will be done in particular through the scheduling of scientific stays, the supervision of professional internships, the deployment of technical expertise and the organization and joint participation in seminars or workshops on themes of common interest, according to the same source.
To this end, the two institutions have set up mechanisms for steering and monitoring the actions to be undertaken within the framework of this agreement, in order to allow a better contribution of nuclear sciences and techniques to the development of the various socio-economic sectors in a safe and sustainable manner, concluded the press release.


TMI-2 core bore acquisition summary report
TMI-2 core bore acquisition summary report Core bore samples were obtained from the severely damaged TMI-2 core during July and August, 1986. A description of the TMI-2 core bore drilling unit used to obtain samples; a summary and discussion of the data from the ten core bore segments which were obtained; and the initial results of analysis and evaluation of these data are presented in this report. The impact of the major findings relative to our understanding of the accident scenario is also discussed.
Enter terms in the toolbar above to search the full text of this document for pages containing specific keywords.


Russia has decided not to construct a nuclear waste storage facility on the island of Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean. Scientists and geologists conducted an analysis of potential changes of the region’s climate and came to the conclusion that rising temperatures over the next 150 to 200 years are threatening to thaw the region’s permafrost. This could lead to leaks of the radioactive materials. Rumyantsev said that the ministry is looking into building a storage facility in a remote part of the Kola Peninsula. He added that the issue was almost resolved. The Atomic Energy Ministry had approved the construction of a USD 70 million nuclear waste storage facility on Novaya Zemlya in June 2002. The project had also been approved by experts from Finland, France, Germany, Norway and the UK and had undergone a government environmental analysis. The Russian Research Institute of Industrial Technology spent 10 years and $2 million to develop the design of the future storage facility on Novaya Zemlya. Such situation can also raise concerns among western donors who partially had financed this research, which turned out to be useless.


Authors:M. Liezers, S. Lehn, K. Olsen, O. Farmer, and Douglas Duckworth
Electrochemically modulated separations (EMS) are shown to be a rapid and selective means of extracting and concentrating
Pu from complex solutions prior to isotopic analysis by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP‐MS). This separation
is performed in a flow injection mode, on‐line with the ICP‐MS. A three‐electrode, flow‐by electrochemical cell is used to
accumulate Pu at an anodized glassy carbon electrode by redox conversion of Pu(III) to Pu (IV&VI). The entire process takes
place in 2% (v/v) (0.46 M) HNO3. No redox chemicals or acid concentration changes are required. Plutonium accumulation and release is redox dependent and
controlled by the applied cell potential. Large transient volumetric concentration enhancements can be achieved. Based on
more negative U(IV) potentials relative to Pu(IV), separation of Pu from uranium is efficient, thereby eliminating uranium
hydride interferences. EMS‐ICP‐MS isotope ratio measurement performance will be presented for femtogram to attogram level
plutonium isotope injections.
Uranium–plutonium mixed carbides have been successfully irradiated up to a burn-up of 159 GWd/t in the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) in Kalpakkam for the first time in the world. FBTR uses a high plutonium
Authors:Sarbjit Singh, Amol Mhatre, and Veena Sagar
The segmented gamma ray scanning system developed for the assay of plutonium present in 200 L waste drums was modified for
the estimation of gram amounts of plutonium in the presence of high beta gamma activity. A multi gamma ray source of 152Eu having ~1 mCi activity was used for the determination of attenuation correction factors for high count rate drums. Dead
time corrections were applied to arrive at the corrected count rates for all the gamma rays. Present study has shown that
the estimation of ~1 g of 239Pu in a waste drum can be carried out in the presence of 137Cs up to an activity level of 20 mCi.
Knowledge of the oxidation state distribution of plutonium in natural waters is necessary in modeling its behavior in environmental systems. The redox speciation of plutonium is complicated by such effects as hydrolysis, complexation, disproportionation, solubility, and redox interchange reactions. The insolubility of Pu(OH)4 is often the limiting factor of the net solubility of plutonium in oxic natural waters where Pu(V)O
is the most stable oxidation state. Perturbations to the oxidation state speciation due to the complexation chemistry of the different oxidation states of plutonium and to the insolubility of plutonium(IV) in neutral aquatic systems are discussed. The merits and limitations of some chemical separation techniques used to study redox speciation of plutonium are presented, and recommendations made for obtaining reliable oxidation state distribution data.
A method for ascertaining equilibrium valence state distributions of plutonium in acid solutions as a function of the plutonium
oxidation number and the solution acidity is illustrated with an example. The method may be more practical for manual use
than methods based upon polynomial equations.
Sediment core samples were collected from Hiroshima Bay in the Seto Inland Sea, western Northwest Pacific Ocean, and their
239+240Pu activities and 240Pu/239Pu atom ratios were determined by sector field ICP-MS. The activities of 239+240Pu ranged from 0.556 ± 0.025 to 0.745 ± 0.023 mBq/g. The atom ratios of 240Pu/239Pu were almost constant within the whole depth; the average value was 0.227 ± 0.014. This atom ratio was significantly higher
than the mean global fallout ratio of 0.18, proving the presence of close-in fallout Pu that originated from the Pacific Proving
Ground (PPG). The water masses exchanges between the Kuroshio Current and the Seto Inland Sea brought the PPG source Pu to
this area, then Pu was extensively scavenged into sediment particles supplied by the rivers around the bay. The relative contributions
of the global fallout Pu and the PPG close-in fallout Pu were evaluated by the two end-member mixing model. The contribution
of the PPG close-in fallout was 38–41% of the total Pu in sediment. The remaining 59–62% was attributed to direct global fallout
and the land-origin Pu transported by the rivers around the Hiroshima Bay.
Methods of monitoring low plutonium concentration in the inner and outer atmosphere are analyzed and compared. It is shown that monitors based on the gross alpha counting of air filters are not sensitive enough to measure reliably plutonium activities below 1 MPC. A spectrometric discontinuously operating monitor using a gridded ionization chamber and a membrane filter having 70 cm2 active area is described. Plutonium activities of the order of 0.01 MPC /1 mBq.m–3/ can be measured by the spectrometer at 1 h sampling and 1 h counting time.
Plutonium in nanogram quantities was isolated from uranium targets irradiated with charged particles. High decontamination was achieved using a method that combines anion exchange with extraction chromatography in tributyl phosphate/hydrochlorid acid solution system.
In the potentiometric titration of plutonium(III), it has been customary to take the equivalence point as the inflection point
on a plot of potential vs. volume of titrant.1 That the stoichiometric end point corresponds to the inflection point does not seem to have been theoretically demonstrated,
however. The purpose of this letter is to suggest that these points may not correspond in the potentiometric titration of


Is through radioactive decay. RADIOMETRIC DATING - Rocks or fossils may contain elements that are radioactive. Scientists use the ratio of parent isotope to daughter product to determine how many half . Leaching of the parent isotope out of the rock did not occur.
(resolved by sampling. Radiometric dating is the method. For establishing the age of objects by measuring the levels of radioisotopes in the sample. http . Measuring the ratio of C14 to C12 and C13 therefore dates the organic. Matter for periods back to about eight half-lives of the isotope. For organic materials, the comparison is between the current ratio of a radioactive isotope Dating a stable 2019 of the Eurovision element and the Latini ratio of Dating two isotopes Albanien living organisms. Radiocarbon dating is one such Laino of radiometric dating.
Radiometric Dating. is Dating stable non-radiogenic isotope of Pb, Albanien we Eurovision write two isochron equations Damua get two independent. Dates . Thus 2019 Hottest Dating Profile Pics Damus 14C Latino 14N in the Earth's atmosphere. Dqmus constant. Living organisms continually 2019 Carbon Damus Nitrogen with. Dxting dating works Latibo measuring how Albanien a radioactive Daring.
Has decayed, and using its known decay Eurovision to Datign when the material was Dating. When a sample is Dating, the Latiho of C-14C-12 is measured and compared to this. If the radiometric dating problem has been solved in this manner, then. Why do we need isochrons, which are claimed to be more accurate? . This is corrected for by comparing the ratio argon-40argon-36 in the rock. With that in the atmosphere. Radiometric dating or radioactive dating is a technique used to date materials such as .
A related method is ioniumthorium datingwhich measures the ratio of ionium . Luminescence dating methods are not radiometric dating methods in that they do not. Radiometric dating is based on the decay of long-lived. Radioactive isotopes that occur .


House Committee Approves Levin Request for $25 Million in Appropriations to Expedite Removal of Spent Nuclear Fuel from SONGS and Other Decommissioning Plants
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Representative Mike Levin (D-CA) announced that the House Appropriations Committee approved $25 million in funding for a consolidated interim storage (CIS) program at the Department of Energy (DOE) to remove spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from nuclear power plant sites across the country, including the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).
Last month, Representative Levin called on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development to include $25 million to support the development of a consolidated interim storage program at the Department of Energy, complete the necessary applications, and assist with site preparation activities and regional transportation efforts of spent nuclear fuel.
“I have said time and time again that the safest thing for my constituents is to move the nuclear waste at SONGS to a site that is not surrounded by millions of people and threatened by earthquakes and sea level rise,” said Representative Levin. “I am grateful to the Appropriations Committee for approving my funding request, which would expedite the removal of spent nuclear fuel from SONGS and other decommissioning nuclear plants across the country, and I hope that process can begin as quickly as possible.”
Specifically, Representative Levin requested $10 million for the initiation of a robust CIS program at DOE; $10 million for site preparation activities at Stranded Fuel sites preparing to move SNF to interim storage facilities; and $5 million to support DOE’s efforts to reinitiate Regional Transport compacts and transportation coordination. That funding is pending final enactment of the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill.


Location: home > Ore Dressing Uranium Exploration
geology, exploration, ore processing and, to a lesser extent, also with mining. Almost all of these reports are strongly emphasizing the technology. The economic evaluation at the various stages of a uranium resource project, from exploration to production, is barely covered.Get Price
New uranium mining projects ukraine. in april 2008, the government set up the nuclear fuel concern based on the eastern ore mining and dressing plant, the novokostiantyniv uranium mine, staterun company smoly, the dnipropetrovsk works of precision pipes, and the ukrainian scientific research, design and exploration institute of industrial technologies.
Us uranium mining and exploration. uranium mining in the usa today is undertaken by few companies on a relatively small scale. uranium exploration is undertaken by many companies, often going over areas that were mined in the 1950
This 27th edition features a comprehensive assessment of uranium supply and demand and projections as of 1 january 2017 to the year 2035. the basis of this assessment is a comparison of uranium resource estimates according to categories of
And ore dressing experiments, the activities slowed down considerably, getting to the end with the studies of the geological survey of finland gtk from the late 1970s to the mid
Nov 14, 2013nbsp018332the once booming uranium market was now stagnant, with some of the oldest and largest companies on the colorado plateau pulling out. between 1961 and 1966, domestic uranium ore production dropped by 50 percent. 36 jcae 1967, p. 1294.
In nigeria, uranium exploration is performed by kulfana mining company ltd,... more details 187 get price. sgs nigeria uranium
Uranium exploration ira3002 b1 year experts equipment fellowships training subcontracts total grand total months cc cc s ncc months cc months ncc s cc cc ncc cc ncc 1991 5 44,250 . 44.250 44,250 1992 5 48,500 50,000 96,500
Thailand and uranium deposits pipat laowattanabandit ... exploration. since 1960s up until 2000, there were several ... traditional ore dressing techniques were used to separate monazite, xenotime and other heavy minerals from the tailings of tin ore. separation of uranium, thorium and rare earth
The hydrometallurgy plant 1151765520.22115176576.22e, 271763750.71271763849.95n surrounded by woodland and cultivated land in no. 721 uranium mining has been used for uranium ore dressing and metallurgy since 1970s. and there are some drainage pipes extended to tailings dam located in the north of the hydrometallurgy ...
Who needs an exploration notice of intent exni exploration notices of intent are required for exploration of all minerals such as gold and silver, precious metals, coal, dimension stone, decorative stone, uranium, precious metals, aggregates, and oil and
Gold ore dressing processing could be the procedure that separating, enriching and extracting the uranium from uranium ore or ore with uranium, to get uranium items in diverse types. the uranium ore dressing techniques mostly consist of chemical mineral processing and physical mineral processing.
Uranium extraction from ore involves the use of acid or base to break own and extract uranium from the raw ore. these processes require significant amounts of acids or bases, the most commonly used being sulfuric acid and sodium carbonate, respectively.
Fluid pathways, and the orefluid processes involved. prior to the discovery of the cigar lake unconformity uranium deposit, basementhosted deposits accounted for approximately 50 percent of the known resources of the athabasca basin. with the subsequent increased emphasis on exploration for unconformity uranium, the basement
Manganese ore dressing towns in ghana ... with mining operations in australia and ghana and with headquarters in jersey our principal activities are the exploration mining processing and sale of manganese ore ... addition to oil which accounted for 80 of the countrys exports in 2004 gabon is a world leader in manganese potash uranium niobium ...
The nuclear fuel cycle consists of frontend steps that prepare uranium for use in nuclear reactors and backend steps to safely manage, prepare, and dispose of usedor spentbut still highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.. uranium is the most widely used fuel by nuclear power plants for nuclear fission. nuclear power plants use a certain type of uraniumu
Uranium exploration and mining and ore processing activities, including the develop173 ment of hydrometallurgical processes. it is intended for chemists with a general background in analytical chemistry, but with limited experience in the analytical chemistry of uranium and of related elements. the manual is divided in two parts.
Manganese ore dressing. ... analytical techniques in uranium exploration and ore processing. sierra leone singapore uranium exploration and mining and ore processing activities including the develop
Largest, richest uranium ore reserves in the world. uranium mining has grown to the point of being second only to copper in economic importance in metal mining west of the rocky mountains. there will be more pressure on public lands to produce minerals in the years to come. many partially developed nations are beginning to look to
Uranium u is a radioactive element that averages one to four parts per million in the earths crust. natural uranium contains about 0.7 of the u 235 isotope the fissile isotope and 99.2of the u 238 isotope. concentrations of uranium minerals such as uraninite, carnotite and brannerite can form commercial deposits.
Ore dressing exploration in tanzania. ore dressing exploration in tanzania. the above is the application of gold ore dressing equipment to the tanzania gold ore dressing plant project we will continue to share more case projects to help customers have a comprehensive understanding of the mining machines.
Mmi measures mobile metal ions, including uranium, in surface soils. these mobile metal ions are released from ore bodies and travel upward toward the surface. using sophisticated chemical processes and instrumentation, mmi is able to measure these ions, in surface soils, to determine accurately where uranium mineralization is located.
A review is given of the role of oredressing mineralogy in the various stages of the development and exploitation of ores, from exploration, through laboratory and pilot
The atomic energy act and other legislative actions authorized the u.s. atomic energy commission aec, predecessor agency to the u.s. department of energy doe, to withdraw lands from the public domain and then lease them to private industry for mineral exploration specifically, the mining of uranium and vanadium ore.
Oct 22, 2017nbsp018332historical criteria it includes report on ancient mining activity, old mine working, archaeological activity, relict of ore dressing, smelting and local names. ancient mining activity is confined mainly to theexploration of gold, copper tin, silver,etc. 17.
Uranium exploration was carried out in finland from 19551989 by several organizations, including atomienergia oy, imatran voima oy, outokumpu oy, and the geological survey of finland gtk. the gtk abandoned its uranium exploration activities in the late 1980s. exploration began again in the 2000s by areva and some junior companies.


Shin Hanul 2 (Shin-Ulchin 2) is a 1,400MW nuclear reactor planned in North Gyeongsang, South Korea. According to GlobalData, who tracks and profiles over 170,000 power plants worldwide, the nuclear reactor is currently at the under construction stage. The construction on the reactor is likely to commence in Jun, 2013. The plant proponent is expected to achieve the first power from the reactor in 2023. Subsequent to the trial runs, the reactor is expected to enter into commercial operation in Sep, 2023. Buy the profile here.
Shin Hanul 2 (Shin-Ulchin 2) is a Generation III nuclear reactor being developed by Doosan Enerbility, the main contractor for the project.
The 1,400MW reactor is currently owned and will be operated by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power. The company has a stake of 100%.
Shin Hanul 2 (Shin-Ulchin 2) is a type of PWR reactor. It will feature 241 fuel assemblies in the core of reactor, the place where fission occurs and energy is released. The project cost is expected to be around $3,266.2m.
The reactor construction is expected to commence from Jun, 2013. Subsequent to that it will enter commercial operation by Sep, 2023.
Doosan Enerbility will be the steam turbine supplier for the nuclear reactor. KEPCO Engineering and Construction and Korea Engineering and Construction are expected to be the architect engineers for the reactor. The reactor system is likely to be supplied by Doosan Enerbility. The reactor vessel is expected to be supplied by Doosan Enerbility. The material used for the construction of the vessel will be SA508, Grade 3, Class 1. The civil works will be carried out by Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co Ltd, SK Engineering & Construction Co Ltd and GS Engineering & Construction.
For more details on Shin Hanul 2 (Shin-Ulchin 2), buy the profile here.
About Doosan Enerbility
Doosan Enerbility Co Ltd (Doosan Enerbility), formerly, Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co Ltd is a power plant equipment manufacturer. It offers integrated equipment and solutions for power and water plants. The company’s major products include boilers, generators, engines, turbines, steam generators, nuclear reactors, material handling equipment, castings and forgings and seawater desalination plants. It also offers construction equipment and undertakes the construction of apartment complexes, roadways, power plants and industrial plants. Doosan Enerbility along with its subsidiaries, branches and affiliates operates in the Middle East, the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia-Pacific. It is a subsidiary of Doosan Corp. Doosan Enerbility is headquartered in Changwon, Yeongnam, South Korea.


Envoy: Iran’s Decision on Uranium Stockpile in Conformity with JCPOA
- July, 02, 2019 - 11:43
- Politics news
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Iran’s ambassador to Vienna-based international organizations described Tehran’s decision to let the stockpile of its enriched uranium pass 300 kilograms as a country’s right enshrined in the 2015 nuclear deal.
Hours after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) announced that Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile has passed the 300 kg limit set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Kazem Gharibabadi said the Islamic Republic’s measure was in conformity with the articles of the nuclear deal.
He said Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has already made it clear that Tehran has referred to the Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA to defend its rights.
“It is now Europe’s turn to take serious practical measures to save the JCPOA, if they really care about its fate,” Gharibabadi added, noting that Iran could reverse its decision, provided that the E3 parties fulfill their commitments and guarantee Iran’s oil sale and trade interactions.
Iran has acted transparently in scaling down it JCPOA commitments, he added.
The envoy also expressed the hope that the international community would stand against the US bullying policies and support the JCPOA.
Iran entered the nuclear talks with “goodwill” and carried out its JCPOA commitments completely, he added, pointing to fifteen consecutive reports from the UN nuclear watchdog about Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal ever since it came into force.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif announced on Monday that the country has increased the level of its low-enriched uranium production to over 300 kilograms.
The move came as part of a decision by the Islamic Republic of Iran to reduce some of its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in reaction to the US violation of its commitments and the Europeans’ failure to live up to their obligations.
The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) first announced on June 17 that the country would speed up enriching uranium at the level of 3.67% and its stockpiles would exceed the 300kg limit within 10 days.


The Department of Energy’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) recently marked a milestone after its drivers exceeded 16 million safe miles without a serious accident or injury—equivalent to 33 round trips to the moon or more than 642 trips around the world, the DOE’s Office of Environmental Management announced.
Located in southeastern New Mexico, WIPP is the DOE’s deep geological repository for defense-related transuranic waste. Since beginning operations in 1999, WIPP has received over 13,400 TRU waste shipments from 22 DOE sites across the country.
“The safety of our shipments and operations at WIPP is our top priority,” said Mark Bollinger, acting manager for DOE-EM’s Carlsbad Field Office. “What is really impressive is if you include the miles driven without waste shipments, it is over 32 million safe miles. The credit goes to the men and women who transport these shipments on a daily basis; they are the best in the business.”
Transport contractor: Since 2017, CAST Specialty Transportation has been the DOE’s sole transportation contractor for delivering TRU waste shipments to the underground waste repository. According to DOE-EM, WIPP drivers receive almost 200 hours of training before they transport their first shipment of TRU waste.
Drivers also must meet extensive driving and background requirements before being considered for employment, EM said. Prior to transporting a shipment of TRU waste, they receive specific training related to these shipments. This includes use of package securement devices, radiation detection equipment, and emergency management procedures.


The IMRP programs has evolved since the first meeting in 1976 to ensure that it always reflect the needs, expectations and status of the industry and science of radiation processing. This evolution continues for IMRP20 and the Program Committee is currently developing content that is topical, enriched and lively.
The IMRP20 program will include plenary sessions with regional, technology and application updates from industry leaders. In a new format, there will also be three forums focussed on irradiation technologies, sterilization of healthcare products and phytosanitary irradiation. The irradiation technologies forum will cover developments in gamma, electron beam and X-ray irradiation technologies. The sterilization and phytosanitary irradiation forums are being developed in collaboration with the Society for Sterility Assurance Professionals (SfSAP) and the Phytosanitary Irradiation Platform (PsIP) to further strengthen their content. Separate registration for these two-day forums will be possible enabling participants to focus on their areas of interest and gain in depth understanding of these evolving technologies and applications.
IMRP20 will continue to include panel discussions, poster presentations, an exhibition, technical tours, side events and a pre-conference training course for students.


The CONNECT Program
The CONsortium on Nuclear sECurity Technologies (CONNECT) is funded by the National Nuclear Security Administration Minority Serving Institution Partnership Program (NNSA MSIPP). This program is designed to build a pipeline between the Department of Energy's sites and labs and minority-serving institutions in STEM disciplines and bring a heightened awareness of NNSA plants and laboratories to institutions with a common interest in STEM research fields.
Students studying physics, computer science, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering, among other disciplines, will work together on interdisciplinary research and network with experts in the nuclear security field.
Through the synergy and leveraging of resources and expertise at three minority serving institutions and two world class national laboratories, we will educate scientists and engineers in the underlying science of nuclear security and nonproliferation; to be the pre-eminent center of research innovation that advances technology solutions in nuclear security in the following three areas:
- Fuel cycle materials
- Nuclear forensics signatures and advanced characterization
- Enabling computational and data analytic techniques
The overarching goal of CONNECT is to educate and train the best next generation professionals with strong backgrounds in nuclear science, fissionable fuels fabrication and processing, nuclear materials characterization, nuclear forensic signatures, nuclear technology, and data and visual analytics, each collaboratively brought to bear on expanding the innovation envelope of nuclear security.
The consortium will conduct basic and applied research that exploits experimental and computational technologies to address grand challenges in nuclear science and engineering pertained to nuclear security.


Axion-gluon interaction induces quadratic couplings between the axion and the matter fields. We find that, if the axion is an ultralight dark matter field, it induces small oscillations of the mass of the hadrons as well as other nuclear quantities. As a result, atomic energy levels oscillate. We use currently available atomic spectroscopy data to constrain such axion-gluon coupling. We also project the sensitivities of future experiments, such as ones using molecular and nuclear clock transitions. We show that current and near-future experiments constrain a finely tuned parameter space of axion models. These can compete with or dominate the already-existing constraints from oscillating neutron electric dipole moment and supernova bound, in addition to those expected from near future magnetometer-based experiments. We also briefly discuss the reach of accelerometers and interferometers.
|Physical review D
|Published - 1 Jan 2024
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics


Is that the same revamp as the nuclear recipe change above, or a second click? Definitely planning to run both of those.bobingabout wrote: ↑Mon Nov 04, 2019 6:12 pmthere's an option for bobrevamp. if the reactor revamp is turned on (and you have bobplates and bobpower with new reactors) then you will only be able to use uranium fuel in a uranium reactor, thorium in a thorium reactor and deuterium in a deuterium reactor.
If there option is turned off (or you lack bobpower's additional reactors) then any fuel works in any reactor.
Interesting that I will need to run a blended reactor solution in perpetuity to keep the higher tier stuff fueled, but I really like that idea. Will need to see whether to have separate facilities, or go with a big array that blends all types of reactors. Complicated fiddly setups and ratios are factorio after all.


H. R. 3995
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 17, 2021
Mr. Gonzalez of Ohio (for himself and Mrs. Luria) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
To direct the Secretary of Energy to submit to Congress a report on the global nuclear leadership of the United States.
This Act may be cited as the
Twenty-First Century Nuclear Security Act.
Report on global nuclear leadership of the United States
Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Secretary of Commerce, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report analyzing—
the opportunities for advancing the interests of the United States with respect to global nuclear safety, nuclear security, and nuclear nonproliferation; and
the risks to such interests of the United States, and the risks to wider foreign policy influence by the United States, posed by the dominance of Russia in the global nuclear energy market and the increasing supply by China to such market.
The report under subsection (a) shall include the following:
An assessment of the historical role of civil nuclear cooperation agreements and supply arrangements made pursuant to the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (42 U.S.C. 2011 et seq.) in influencing the policies and practices of foreign governments concerning nuclear safety, nuclear security, and nuclear nonproliferation, and the wider foreign policy interests, including—
a description of possible opportunities for using nuclear cooperation agreements and related exports to improve nuclear safety, nuclear security, and nuclear nonproliferation, and the foreign policy interests of the United States;
a description of potential risks associated with such agreements and nuclear exports; and
a description of the potential market for small and advanced reactor technologies.
An assessment of the competitiveness of the United States against Russia and China in the global nuclear energy market, including—
a comparison of nuclear reactor research and design by Russia and China with analogous research and design by the United States;
a comparison of the ability of Russia and China to produce and export nuclear technology with analogous abilities of the United States;
a description of the factors enabling progress made by Russia and China regarding civil nuclear technology;
a comparison of the export policies of the United States with regard to civil nuclear technology, including the role, if any, of financial support, with such policies of Russia and China;
a list of specific reactor designs, including fuel characteristics, that Russia and China have offered for export; and
details of any agreements made by Russia or China for exporting nuclear technology, including the duration, purchase price, potential profitability, any provisions regarding spent fuel take back, related regulatory support, and any other elements that compromise a competitive offer.
An assessment, if applicable, of the means by which Russia or China uses foreign-origin dual-use nuclear technology for military purposes.
Recommendations for regulatory or legislative actions for developing a robust free-enterprise response designed to improve the competitiveness of the United States in the global nuclear energy market.
Appropriate congressional committees defined
In this section, the term appropriate congressional committees means—
the congressional defense committees (as defined in section 101(a)(16) of title 10, United States Code);
the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, the Committee on Foreign Relations, and the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate; and
the Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House of Representatives.


Understanding Radiation Measurement Instruments
In the realm of radiation safety, precision is paramount. The cornerstone of accurate radiation measurement lies in the tools we employ for this critical task. Addressing the question posed - "Which instrument is used for measuring radiation?" - demands a nuanced exploration of devices designed to detect and quantify radiation levels.
The Geiger-Muller Counter: Unveiling the Answer
Unraveling the Mystery
At the forefront of radiation measurement instruments stands the Geiger-Muller counter. This device, named after its inventors Hans Geiger and Walther Muller, is a pivotal tool for assessing ionizing radiation. Its functionality hinges on detecting the presence of radioactive particles by ionizing gas within its chamber.
The Geiger-Muller counter operates through a process where incoming radiation collides with gas atoms, creating ion pairs. The resulting electrical charge triggers a measurable signal, allowing for the quantification of radiation levels. This ingenious mechanism forms the bedrock of its efficacy.
Significance and Impact
Ensuring Occupational Safety
In industries where exposure to radiation is a constant concern, such as nuclear power plants and medical facilities, the Geiger-Muller counter plays a pivotal role. Its swift and accurate readings empower workers to take timely precautions, mitigating potential health risks.
Beyond the confines of occupational settings, the Geiger-Muller counter contributes significantly to environmental monitoring. Detecting abnormal radiation levels in the environment is crucial for identifying potential hazards and safeguarding public health.
Evolution of Radiation Measurement
While the Geiger-Muller counter remains a stalwart in radiation measurement, technological advancements have given rise to more sophisticated instruments. Scintillation detectors and ionization chambers, for instance, offer enhanced precision and application-specific advantages.
Choosing the Right Tool
Selecting the appropriate instrument depends on factors such as the type of radiation being measured, required sensitivity, and the environment in which the measurement occurs. A comprehensive understanding of these variables ensures optimal instrument selection for any given scenario.
In the dynamic landscape of radiation measurement, the Geiger-Muller counter emerges as a linchpin. Its historical significance, coupled with its enduring efficacy, cements its status as the go-to instrument for many applications. However, the evolving nature of technology beckons us to explore newer, more specialized tools, ensuring that our approach to radiation measurement remains as advanced as the risks we seek to mitigate.


Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
Definition - What does Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR) mean?
A pressurized water reactor (PWR) is a nuclear reactor that uses water as a coolant and moderator, which produces steam to drive a turbine. Pressurized water reactors are used as source of nuclear power for submarines and power plants.
Pressurized water reactors constitute the large majority of all Western nuclear power plants. About two-thirds of the operating nuclear reactor power plants in the United States are PWRs.
PWRs were initially designed to help as nuclear propulsion for nuclear submarines and were used in the original design of the second commercial power plant at Shippingport Atomic Power Station.
Corrosionpedia explains Pressurized Water Reactor (PWR)
Pressurized water reactors are a common nuclear power reactor design in which very pure water is:
- Heated to a very elevated temperature by fission
- Kept under high pressure (to prevent it from boiling)
- Changed to steam by a steam generator (rather than by boiling, as in a boiling-water reactor)
The resulting steam is used to drive turbines, which stimulate generators to produce electrical power.
A pressurized water reactor essentially operates like a pressure cooker, where a lid is tightly secured over a pot of heated water, causing the pressure inside to increase as the temperature increases (because the steam cannot escape), but keeping the water from boiling at the usual 212°F (100°C).
Two things are characteristic for the pressurized water reactor when compared with other reactor types: coolant loop separation from the steam system and pressure inside the primary coolant loop. In a PWR, there are two separate coolant loops (primary and secondary), which are both filled with demineralized/deionized water. In contrast, a boiling water reactor has only one coolant loop, while more exotic designs such as breeder reactors use substances other than water as a coolant and moderator.
Advantages of PWR include:
- Easy to operate from a stability standpoint
- Water in the secondary loop is not contaminated by radioactive materials
- Can passively shut down the reactor in the event that offsite power is lost to immediately stop the primary nuclear reaction


The TLD glass is a device used in measuring the level of radiation in high energy radiation environment like X or G-ray, UV, etc. in laboratory of radiation physics, polymer industry, food processing and material testing where moderate to high level (104-106 R) energetic radiation is used. The process of preparation of glass consists of two steps (i) preparation of a porous silica glass (ii) sintering of porous glass to a monolithic mass after doping the former with an organo copper compound. The glass prepared is used in powder form of TLD application. The present TLD glass is having a capability of measurement of a wider range of radiation dose (102- 106 R). Compared to conventional TLD material like CaSO4 : Dy, CaSO4, Tm, LiF TLD-600, etc. Gives a stable and consistent response in widely varying environmental condition, repeatedly usable for a larger number of times and it is economical.


JINMACHI AIR BASE, Japan—The U.S. Navy is keeping all but critical missions from flying through a wide stretch of airspace above Japan’s overheating nuclear plant—an even larger area than the U.S. government has recommended that Americans avoid on the ground.
The air cordon is intended to ensure safety and keep routine flights from passing through potentially hazardous airspace, Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a spokesman for the U.S. 7th Fleet, said Friday.
It’s not a complete ban, with specific missions still being carried out inside a “heightened awareness zone,” Davis said. U.S. aircraft are conducting flights to measure radiation coming from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, where reactors and fuel storage pools began overheating after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems.
The restricted zone covers a radius of 100 nautical miles—or about 115 miles or 185 kilometers—above the Fukushima plant. The area is more than twice the 50-mile (80-kilometer) radius the U.S. government has urged Americans to avoid on the ground, which in turn is larger than the area where the Japanese government says people should either leave or stay indoors to prevent radiation exposure.
Setting a wider safety zone for Americans was seen as another rebuke of Japan’s handling of the Fukushima crisis, which U.S. officials said was bleaker than the Japanese government has stated. The Navy this week widened its restricted flight zone first to 25 nautical miles (30 miles or 45 kilometers), then to 50 nautical miles (60 miles or 90 kilometers) and finally by Friday to 100 nautical miles.
Davis said missions inside the zone take place only after evaluating “current atmospheric conditions to include wind direction, and ensure that extra precautionary measures are being taken.” He said crews are given potassium iodide, which retards absorption of radiation and reduces the risks of thyroid cancer, and are decontaminated if post-mission monitoring detects any contamination


Keywords: plant pests
The Insect Pest Control Laboratory of the Joint FAO/IAEA Programme: Ten Years (2010–2020) of Research and Development, Achievements and Challenges in Support of the Sterile Insect TechniqueM. J. B. Vreysen, A. M. M. Abd-Alla, K. Bourtzis, J. Bouyer, C. Caceres, C. de Beer, D. Oliveira Carvalho, H. Maiga, W. Mamai, K. Nikolouli, H. Yamada and R. Pereira, Insects, 12. 2021.
The Joint FAO/IAEA Centre (formerly called Division) of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture was established in 1964 and its accompanying laboratories in 1961. One of its subprograms deals with insect pest control, and has the mandate to develop and implement the sterile ...
Keywords: area-wide integrated pest management, autocidal control, genetic sexing, genetics and molecular biology, human disease vectors, IIT, incompatible insect technique, livestock bests, mass rearing, plant pests, SIT, sterile insect technique
Foundation for the
National Institutes of Health


IN THE mountain village of Kara Agach in Kyrgyzstan people are unwittingly eating radioactive waste. Radium left behind by more than two decades of uranium mining during the Soviet era has contaminated their chickens, milk, potatoes and pears.
A new study by Belgian and Kyrgyz scientists has shown that villagers are receiving radiation doses up to 40 times the internationally recommended safety limit, mostly from the food they grow. If the uranium waste dumps were dislodged by earthquakes or landslides, thousands more could be in danger. "There is a potential for a radiological disaster to happen," says Hildegarde Vandenhove from the Belgian Nuclear Research Centre in Mol.
In the debate over the merits and demerits of nuclear energy, the situation in Kara Agach is a warning. Often the people and places that have to deal with the hazards of uranium mining are forgotten in discussions of the environmental costs of ...
To continue reading this article, subscribe to receive access to all of newscientist.com, including 20 years of archive content.


Concerns over Fukushima: Japan PM promises to act soon
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday the government will take prompt, comprehensive steps to clean up the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant amid growing concerns about the plant operator's ability to handle it.
Tokyo: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said on Monday the government will take prompt, comprehensive steps to clean up the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant amid growing concerns about the plant operator's ability to handle it.
Embattled Tokyo Electric Power Co <9501.T>, or Tepco, said at the weekend that radiation near a tank holding highly contaminated water at the plant had spiked 18-fold, to a level that could kill an exposed person in four hours. No new leak had been detected at the tank, but another leak was found from a pipe connecting two other tanks.
Abe reiterated that the government will step forward to take all necessary steps to handle the legacy of the world's worst nuclear disaster in a quarter century, adding it will draw up a fundamental plan to do so "quickly."
Abe's cabinet is likely to discuss this week funding for the Fukushima clean-up after a series of revelations about leaks of radioactive water at the coastal plant, said Tadamori Oshima, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's taskforce on post-disaster reconstruction.
Public concern over Fukushima, revived by the news of leaks of radiated water at the plant, have threatened to further delay the restart of other off-line reactors - a key part of Abe's plan for economic revival and a pillar of the turnaround plan Tepco has given its creditor banks.
Japan's nuclear industry, which once provided a third of the nation's power, has nearly come to a halt since a massive earthquake and tsunami struck the Fukushima plant in March 2011, causing reactor meltdowns. Tepco has been pumping water over the reactors to keep them cool, and storing the radioactive waste water as well as contaminated ground water in ever-growing numbers of above-ground tanks.
Japanese officials also fear that international attention to the Fukushima crisis could threaten Tokyo's bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games, a decision set to be made by the International Olympics Committee on Saturday in Buenos Aires.
Japan's foreign ministry has begun issuing English language updates on the Fukushima plant and the Tokyo Metropolitan Government now carries the latest radiation data on its website showing that radiation levels in the capital, some 230 km (140 miles) from the stricken facility, are on par with or lower than London and New York.
Find latest and upcoming tech gadgets online on Tech2 Gadgets. Get technology news, gadgets reviews & ratings. Popular gadgets including laptop, tablet and mobile specifications, features, prices, comparison.
Tokyo Olympics 2020: In Fukushima, torch relay faces cool welcome from 2011 nuclear disaster evacuees
In Fukushima, Tokyo Olympics 2020 torch relay faces cool welcome from 2011 nuclear disaster evacuees
Twelve nuclear power comapnies will pay into a new entity set up to pay compensation for damages caused by the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster in proportion of power generated by each.


Results 1 - 10 of 44177
Results 1 - 10 of 44177. Search took: 0.031 seconds
|Sort by: date | relevance|
[en] The ZED-2 (Zero Energy Deuterium) reactor is an experimental low-power critical facility located at the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited Chalk River Laboratories in Ontario, Canada. The facility is used to perform physics experiments in support of the CANDU and Advanced CANDU Reactor (ACR) programs. The reactor core is a large cylindrical vessel in which reactor fuel rods are positioned vertically. A heavy water moderator is pumped into the vessel to make the reactor critical. The ZED-2 design is very versatile: it can accommodate mixed fuel types in a variable number of fuel rods each with or without CANDU-type or ACR-type channels; channel coolants can be light or heavy water, or air, and can vary from channel to channel; lattices can be square or hexagonal with continuously variable lattice pitch; and some CANDU-type channels can be heated. Many of the experiments performed involve uniform cores containing the same type of fuel and channel in each fuelled location. However, at times a smaller number of fuel rods and channels are placed in the centre of a larger region of reference fuel to form a critical core assembly. These are called substitution experiments. The purpose of this paper is to describe why substitution experiments are performed, detail how they have historically been conducted and analyzed to extract the desired data from the test fuel, and finally how they are performed and analyzed today using specialized software.
[en] Lowering the string scale in the TeV region provides a theoretical framework for solving the mass hierarchy problem and unifying all interactions. The apparent weakness of gravity can then be accounted by the existence of large internal dimensions, in the sub-millimeter region, and transverse to a braneworld where our universe must be confined. I review the main properties of this scenario and its experimental implications. (author)
[en] We present lattice QCD simulation results from the European Twisted Mass Collaboration (ETMC) for the light, strange and charm quark contents of the nucleon. These quantities are important ingredients to estimate the cross-section for the detection of WIMPs as Dark Matter candidates. By employing a particular lattice QCD formulation, i.e. twisted mass fermions, accurate results of the light and strange scalar contents of the nucleon can be obtained. In addition, we provide a bound for the charm quark content of the nucleon. (author)
[en] Strange quark nuggets (SQNs) could be the relics of the cosmological QCD phase transition, and they could very likely be the candidate of cold dark matter if survived the cooling of the later Universe, although the formation and evolution of these SQNs depend on the physical state of the hot QGP (quark-gluon plasma) phase and the state of cold quark matter. We reconsider the possibility of SQNs as cold dark matter, and discuss the astrophysical consequences of primordial SQNs in the early and present universe. In the early Universe, the formation of black holes inside primordial halos could be faster than that in the standard scenario, and speed up the formation of the supermassive black holes at high redshift. In the present Universe, the capture of SQNs by pulsars could trigger star-quakes, which could be the mechanism for pulsar-glitches. (author)
[en] A simple parallelization approach using General Purpose computation on Graphics Processing Unit was applied for solving the MHD equations using the CIP-MOCCT method. We investigated the efficiency of this parallelization approach and found that the computational speed of the modified code is significantly improved despite the simple modification. (author)


Fusion is a nuclear reaction that occurs when two light atoms combine to create one atom of a heavier element, in the process releasing a large burst of energy. Fusion is the Universe’s energy supply. All forms of energy generation on Earth are merely derived from fusion energy created by the stars. It does not generate the harmful waste of other energy sources, such as the greenhouse gasses produced by coal power or the nuclear waste associated with nuclear fission that powers today’s nuclear power plants. Fusion is considered to be a clean, safe and virtually limitless source of power that can meet global energy needs for generations to come.
We have an opening for a Research Engineer with experience in high energy plasma diagnostics.
Please contact us at email@example.com


One step at a time
the staged development of geologic repositories for high-level radioactive waste
Compared to other large engineering projects, geologic repositories for high-level waste present distinctive challenges because: 1) they are first-of-a-kind, complex, and long-term projects that must actively manage hazardous materials for many decades: 2) they are expected to hold these hazardous materials passively safe for many millennia after repository closure; and 3) they are widely perceived to pose serious risks. As is the case for other complex projects, repository programs should proceed in stages. "One Step at a Time focuses on a management approach called "adaptive staging" as a promising means to develop geologic repositories for high-level radioactive waste such as the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Adaptive staging is a learn-as-you-go process that enables project managers to continuously reevaluate and adjust the program in response to new knowledge and stakeholder input. Advice is given on how to implement staging during the construction, operation, closure, and post-closure, phases of a repository program.


The breast milk of about 10,000 mothers living in Fukushima Prefecture, home to the debilitated Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, will be tested for radioactive contimation.
Details have yet to be finalized, but officials are working out a plan to obtain the breast milk samples from new mothers in the region. The cost will is said to be about ¥50,000 per person.
Last May and June, just months after the Japanese earthquake an tsunami, traces of radioactive cesium in the breast milk of 7 in 21 mothers were found.
So, so sad! Japanese is still dealing with such life-threatening effects of the disaster that occurred in March 2011.
Here's hoping that the government finds a way to help these mothers and their newborns.
[Image via AP Images.]


FLIR identiFINDER Handheld RIID
The original FLIR identiFINDER (ICX, Target Fieldspec) handheld spectrometer (RIID) for locating and identifying radioactive isotopes. The identiFINDER is a user-friendly instrument that identifies man-made and natural radionuclides and combines high sensitivity with a wide dose rate range. The instrument has a dual purpose design to facilitate locating missing or offending sources and then identifying the source via its gamma spectrometry and nuclide identification capability. The identiFINDER is a complete digital gamma spectroscopy and dose rate system. It integrates multi-channel analyzer, amplifier, high voltage power supply, and memory with an integral scintillation and GM detector.


Large-scale radiation accidents are few in number, but those that have occurred have subsequently led to strict regulation in most countries. Here, different accident scenarios involving exposure to radiation have been reviewed. A triage of injured persons has been summarized and guidance on management has been provided in accordance with the early symptoms. Types of casualty to be expected in atomic blasts have been discussed. Management at the scene of an accident has been described, with explanation of the role of the radiation protection officer, the nature of contaminants, and monitoring for surface contamination. Methods for early diagnosis of radiation injuries have been then described. The need for individualization of treatment according to the nature and grade of the combined injuries has been emphasized, and different approaches to the treatment of internal contamination have been presented. The role of nuclear medicine professionals, including physicians and physicists, has been reviewed. It has been concluded that the management of radiation accidents is a very challenging process and that nuclear medicine physicians have to be well organized in order to deliver suitable management in any type of radiation accident.


A method is described by which muons are decelerated from MeV kinetic energies to energies below 50 keV inside a magnetic focusing device (cyclotron trap) and then extracted by an electric field into a magnetic guiding channel. Test measurements were performed which resulted in about 104/s extracted negative muons, in reasonable agreement with Monte-Carlo simulations. Using this method, muon beams in the energy range of 10-50 keV with intensities up to 105 μ-/s will be available in the near future.
|Number of pages||8|
|Journal||Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research, Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment|
|Publication status||Published - Jul 21 1997|
- Charged-particle beams
- Muonic atoms
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Nuclear and High Energy Physics


Nanoindentation techniques for the microstructure vs. mechanical property correlation of virgin and irradiated materials2022.01.20 9:45 - Katarzyna Kuźniar
Charged particle irradiation can serve as a tool for the emulation of neutron irradiation damage, as damage levels can be attained at a fraction of the irradiation duration and cost. It is a method of choice for the rapid screening of the irradiation tolerance of materials as a precursor of more expensive neutron irradiation studies for nuclear reactor safety. Ion irradiation, however, has only micrometric penetration depths, requiring micro- or nanomechanical methods for the assessment of irradiation induced damage and material hardening, as compared to the macroscopic effects induced by neutron irradiation.
Instrumented indentation techniques are useful to probe the nanomechanical properties and to fingerprint microstructural features of materials. Nanoindentation is sensitive to radiation-induced microstructural changes, irradiation damage and concomitant hardening, thereby facilitating the use of ion irradiation studies to emulate neutron irradiation.
However, there are various ion vs. neutron transferability issues relating to differences in the damage processes, to the practical implementation of ion irradiation experiments, as well as to the nanoindentation method itself. The presentation focuses on benefits and limitations of different nanoindentation techniques enabling the assessment of ion-irradiation damage, such as the separation of the indentation size effect from the effect of ion irradiation under test, and the link between the nanoindentation response and the mechanical properties of interest.
The presentation capitalises on research completed by the “Multiscale Modelling for Fusion and Fission Materials” (M4F) project consortium in the dedicated "Nanoindentation" work package to which NCBJ contributed. The results to be presented help promote the use of ion irradiation for the emulation of material performance and degradation by neutron irradiation damage. This can accelerate the development of radiation tolerant materials for safe nuclear fission and fusion applications.


About 60 years ago, scientists discovered that a certain rare earth metal-hydrogen mixture, yttrium, could be the ideal moderator to go inside small, gas-cooled nuclear reactors.
Two staff members at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have received prestigious HENAAC and Luminary Awards from Great Minds in STEM, a nonprofit organization that focuses on promoting STEM careers in underserved
Horizon31, LLC has exclusively licensed a novel communication system that allows users to reliably operate unmanned vehicles such as drones from anywhere in the world using only an internet connection.
ORNL researchers have developed an intelligent power electronic inverter platform that can connect locally sited energy resources such as solar panels, energy storage and electric vehicles and smoothly interact with the utility power grid.
From materials science and earth system modeling to quantum information science and cybersecurity, experts in many fields run simulations and conduct experiments to collect the abundance of data necessary for scientific progress.
Scientists at the Department of Energy Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at ORNL have their eyes on the prize: the Transformational Challenge Reactor, or TCR, a microreactor built using 3D printing and other new approaches that will be up and running by 2023.
For the second year in a row, a team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories led a demonstration hosted by EPB, a community-based utility and telecommunications company serving Chattanooga, Tennessee.
In the race to identify solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are joining the fight by applying expertise in computational science, advanced manufacturing, data science and neutron science.
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Feb. 19, 2020 — The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority have signed a memorandum of understanding to evaluate a new generation of flexible, cost-effective advanced nuclear reactors.
Rigoberto “Gobet” Advincula has been named Governor’s Chair of Advanced and Nanostructured Materials at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee.


STATUS: In progress with opposition
OPPOSITION: Snake River Alliance
BACKGROUND: Alternative Energy Holdings Inc. (AEHI) has proposed to build a 1,600-megawatt nuclear plant in Elmore County on 1,280 acres near Hammett, Utah. Early construction estimates by the developer are that it will cost between $4 and $5 billion to construct the plant, and will require 5,000 jobs at the peak of construction.
The original plan was to site the plant in nearby Owyhee County, but AEHI chose to move the project to Hammett due to a number of issues, including the discovery of a fault line at the site.
The developer’s plans to build the plant have stalled over the years due to siting and zoning issues, as well as environmental group opposition. The Snake River Alliance, a nuclear watchdog group, opposes the project citing water issues and radioactive waste storage as drawbacks to the plan. A spokesperson from the Alliance states “The last thing Idaho needs is a nomad nuclear power plant developer bouncing from county to county, looking for the best deal for his outrageously bad idea.” In November 2008, the Elmore County Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the developer’s proposal to re-zone land for the plant. In November 2009, however, the Commission voted 4-3 to begin amending the county comprehensive plan and remove conflicts with the rezoning application for the nuclear plant. The Snake River Alliance indicated that the vote merely allows for examination of possible future development and does not actually move the nuclear plant forward. In October 2009, the developer wrote to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission announcing that it expects to file the license application for the plant in the fourth quarter of 2011.
On October 28, 2010, AEHI secured private funding to cover payments for land, water rights, engineering work and Nuclear Regulatory Commission application fees to obtain a combined construction and operating license. Progress continues for the Hammett project, albeit slowly.
SOURCES: AEHI (http://aehi.wordpress.com/);
Times-News Magic Valley (http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/article_683fa07d-a401-5e6e-9af8-87e2242fcec1.html; http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/article_1d92bce9-0387-5199-9fea-ea15e01c858c.html);
Mountain Home News (http://www.mountainhomenews.com/story/1324059.html).
Last Updated: November 5, 2010


Tehran: Iran is warning it will produce nuclear fuel on its own if there is no deal to have the West deliver the fuel in exchange for Tehran's enriched uranium by the end of January.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told state TV on Saturday the West must "make a decision" whether to accept the Iranian counterproposal to either sell Tehran the fuel or swap it for Iran's enriched uranium.
Mottaki said this is an "ultimatum."
He says the international community "has one month left" to decide - or Tehran will enrich uranium to a higher level, needed for the fuel.
Iran dismissed an end of 2009 deadline on a UN-drafted deal to swap enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. The deal would have reduced Iran's capabilities to make nuclear weapons.


The US Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) recently posted guidelines on its continued operations during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. While NNSA personnel are mostly working remotely, the agency is otherwise operating business-as-usual.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a letter on April 9 to provide guidance on reporting requirements under 10 CFR 50.55a, “Codes and Standards,” in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The guidance is applicable to nuclear reactors licensed under 10 CFR Part 50.
The NRC issued its final Temporary Staff Guidance (Final Guidance) on April 6 on its review procedures for coronavirus (COVID-19)-related Part 26 exemption requests. The NRC previously issued a draft of this guidance on April 1 and also discussed the draft during a teleconference with the industry on April 2, which we reported on.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a letter including frequently asked questions (FAQs) on April 7 to all agreement and non-agreement states to address the NRC’s regulation of nuclear materials—and its policies and recent activities related thereto—in light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The NRC posted a copy of the FAQs to its password-protected Materials Security Toolbox and intends to update that site “as additional information becomes available.”
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a letter on April 7 to all NRC licensees authorized to possess byproduct, source, and special nuclear material – excluding operating power reactor and research test reactor licensees – outlining how those licensees might seek relief from certain regulatory requirements as a result of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
As we recently reported, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is prepared to grant exemptions to the work-hour controls in 10 CFR 26.205(d)(1)-(7) if the coronavirus (COVID-19) public health emergency affects a licensee’s staffing for workers who fall within the scope of Part 26.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and the US Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issued internal guidance on March 30 regarding potential discussions with licensees and offsite response organizations (OROs) related to the postponement and rescheduling of radiological emergency preparedness (REP) exercises due to the worsening coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Read our recent LawFlash detailing the key takeaways for energy companies from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act signed into law on March 27. Although the act does not expressly provide relief for energy companies, many of its provisions impact energy sector companies.
A week after first issuing guidance identifying the workers considered essential for critical industries in the United States during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) on March 28, 2020, revised that guidance to capture a broader array of workers, particularly in the energy sector.
Over the past few days, several civic and environmental organizations have requested that federal departments and agencies pause rulemaking activities in response to the worsening coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.


These guys play popular S.T.A.L.K.E.R. video game for real. They on purpose go to the Chernobyl area of the nuclear disaster explosion site dress in Stalker themed cloths and play, even involving armored vehicles and real guns. And that’s all just a few yards away from the disaster site, the place where there is still a high dose of radiation in the soil.
submitted by hooey.ru via star-dreamer


Transport Efficiency Studies for Light-Ion Inertial Confinement Fusion
NAVAL RESEARCH LAB WASHINGTON DC
Pagination or Media Count:
The proposed Laboratory Microfusion Facility LMF will require greater than or equal to 10 MJ of 30 MeV lithium ions to be transported and focused onto high-gain, high-yield inertial confinement fusion targets. The light-ion LMF approach used a multi modular system with individual ion extraction diodes as beam sources. Several transport schemes are being considered to deliver the individual ion beams to the centrally located target. Previous work P.F. Ottinger, D.V. Rose, and C.L. Olson, J. Appl. Phys. 75, 4402 1994 examined the effect of time-of-flight bunching on energy transport efficiency, eta t, under realistic constraints on diode operation, beam transport, and packing. Target design considerations suggest that the instantaneous power efficiency, gamma t, be maximized near peak power. Because of time-of-flight bunching, peak power occurs at the end of the power pulse for LMF designs. This work examines the effect of power efficiency running on eta t for three transport schemes. Results indicate that tuning the power pulse to maximize gamma t, at about three-quarters through the pulse provides high power efficiency at the end of the pulse while still maintaining high eta t. In addition to power efficiency tuning, effects on eta t from variations of the diode impedance model and the diode voltage waveform are also examined. Light- ion, Inertial confinement fusion.
- Electrical and Electronic Equipment
- Electricity and Magnetism
- Particle Accelerators
- Nuclear Physics and Elementary Particle Physics


Why I Believe that Nuclear Energy is the Safest Form of Energy
- Jul 7, 2018 1:03 am GMT
One of the advantages of having a father who was a nuclear safety researcher is that I had a chance to look at nuclear safety from the inside rather than from the outside. Most of my father’s work during his twenty-nine year Oak Ridge career was either directly or indirectly related to nuclear safety. My father made significant contributions to the safety of reactors in several respects. He also made contributions to the study of the release of radioisotopes in the environment through a number of sources including natural gas. He concluded that radioisotopes from natural gas could be far more dangerous to customers than radioisotopes from nuclear power plants because some radioisotopes are delivered to homes through natural gas pipes. Needless to say, people who are frightened about radiation from nuclear power plants steadily ignore the far more dangerous problem of radio active materials traveling into the home through natural gas pipes. My father estimated that there were as many as ten thousand causalities in the US every year due to breathing radioisotopes transmitted to the home by natural gas. Critics of nuclear power do not worry about the radiation safety problems of natural gas even though they may be far more serious.
The first commercial reactors were far less safe than the current generation of reactor design. Reactor scientists expressed their concern during the 1960s and early 1970, although the nuclear establishment in Washington D.C. steadfastly refused to acknowledge the problem. Eventually, this refusal led to the Three-Mile Island accident, but subsequently great strides were made in improving nuclear safety. The accident at Fukushima was the result of human error as well as huge and unexpected natural events. The human error was not anticipating a natural event; a forty-five foot tsunami that overwhelmed the backup generation system of the Fukushima reactors. This deprived the reactors of coolant water and eventually led to partial core meltdowns. Despite these catastrophic accidents, no one was killed by core meltdowns or the radiation released as a consequence. The truth is, that no one has ever been killed as a result of a commercial reactor core meltdown.
In contrast, construction and maintenance workers have fallen to their death from wind generator towers making wind far more dangerous than a nuclear power plant. There have also been causalities in relationship to both solar voltaic installations and concentrated solar energy facilities. Despite this evidence, some claim that nuclear power is more dangerous. When asked to explain this claim, they say that accidents will happen because we are human and human beings always make mistakes, however there is one way to avoid human mistakes leading to serious nuclear accidents. That is to take human judgment out of the equation. Reactors can be designed so that they will be safe by nature.
Nuclear accidents in the past have been the consequence of human errors, but if you take the safety out of the hands of human operators and place it in the hands of Mother Nature you can avoid accidents. How do you put nuclear safety in the hands of Mother Nature? In a West African nation called Gabon in a place called Okla there is a Uranium mine. Scientist exploring the Uranium mine discovered evidence that ore in the Uranium deposit had gone critical spontaneously some two billion years ago and continued to go critical at times over a period of several million years. The criticality came about as underground water seeped into the ore and, as in Light Water Reactors, it moderated neutron speed thus stimulating a chain reaction.
There were as many as twenty separate natural reactors uncovered in the mine none of which had what could be called a nuclear accident. As the temperature of water in the ore went up, it boiled away and as it boiled away the chain reaction slowed and then stopped. The heat was not great enough to melt the ore and most of the nuclear byproducts did not leave the locality. Eventually, as the natural reactor cooled, water seeped back into it and the chain reaction commenced again. Finally, the amount of U-235 in the ore became too low to sustain further chain reactions and the natural reactors died. The Okla events tell us that by following the laws of nature nuclear safety is possible. Furthermore, if we are only following the laws of nature, it is not possible for mistakes in human judgment to produce major accidents. We need only trust the laws of nature to establish safe nuclear power. Unfortunately, safety of Light Water Reactors is not based on the laws of nature. Their safety is based on multi layered defense systems.
The latest generation of reactors is designed to partially use natural safety, but still has to go on the multi layered defense system in order to make them safe enough. The next generation of reactors called generation IV includes a number of designs that are even safer than the most recent water cooled reactor designs. These include both the Integral Fast Reactor and all forms of Molten Salt Reactors including LFTRs. Critics of nuclear safety often fail to recognize the evolution of reactor safety design and further fail to recognize the potential for developing even safer reactors. Given that nuclear power is now the safest form of energy and that very great improvements in nuclear safety are possible, the arguments against nuclear power for safety reason are absurd. The critics of nuclear power have been informed of the actual situation of nuclear safety. The source of information is science, thus the attacks on the safety of nuclear power are attacks on science.
Photo Credit: Nuclear Energy and Safety Concerns/shutterstock
Get Published - Build a Following
The Energy Central Power Industry Network is based on one core idea - power industry professionals helping each other and advancing the industry by sharing and learning from each other.
If you have an experience or insight to share or have learned something from a conference or seminar, your peers and colleagues on Energy Central want to hear about it. It's also easy to share a link to an article you've liked or an industry resource that you think would be helpful.


This article needs additional citations for verification. (September 2014)
The Bragg peak is a pronounced peak on the Bragg curve which plots the energy loss of ionizing radiation during its travel through matter. For protons, α-rays, and other ion rays, the peak occurs immediately before the particles come to rest. This is called Bragg peak, after William Henry Bragg who discovered it in 1903.
When a fast charged particle moves through matter, it ionizes atoms of the material and deposits a dose along its path. A peak occurs because the interaction cross section increases as the charged particle's energy decreases. Energy lost by charged particles is inversely proportional to the square of their velocity, which explains the peak occurring just before the particle comes to a complete stop. In the upper figure, it is the peak for alpha particles of 5.49 MeV moving through air. In the lower figure, it is the narrow peak of the "native" proton beam curve which is produced by a particle accelerator of 250 MeV. The figure also shows the absorption of a beam of energetic photons (X-rays) which is entirely different in nature; the curve is mainly exponential.
This characteristic of proton beams was first recommended for use in cancer therapy by Robert R. Wilson in his 1946 article, Radiological Use of Fast Protons. Wilson studied how the depth of proton beam penetration could be controlled by the energy of the protons. This phenomenon is exploited in particle therapy of cancer, specifically in proton therapy, to concentrate the effect of light ion beams on the tumor being treated while minimizing the effect on the surrounding healthy tissue.
The blue curve in the figure ("modified proton beam") shows how the originally monoenergetic proton beam with the sharp peak is widened by increasing the range of energies, so that a larger tumor volume can be treated. The plateau created by modifying the proton beam is referred to as the spread out Bragg Peak, or SOBP, which allows the treatment to conform to not only larger tumors, but to more specific 3D shapes. This can be achieved by using variable thickness attenuators like spinning wedges.
- Charlie Ma, C-M; Lomax, Tony (2012). Proton and carbon ion therapy. Boca Raton: CRC Press. p. 4. ISBN 9781439816073.
- "Bragg Curves and Peaks". Brookhaven National Laboratory. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
- Wilson, Robert R. (1946-11-01). "Radiological Use of Fast Protons". Radiology. 47 (5): 487–491. doi:10.1148/47.5.487. ISSN 0033-8419. PMID 20274616.
- Trikalinos, TA; et al. (2009). Particle Beam Radiation Therapies for Cancer [Internet]. Comparative Effectiveness Technical Briefs, No. 1. Rockville (MD): Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (US). pp. ES1–ES5.
- Jette, D.; Chen, W. (2011). "ShieldSquare Captcha". Physics in Medicine and Biology. 56 (11): N131-8. doi:10.1088/0031-9155/56/11/N01. PMID 21558588.
- Paganetti, Harald; Bortfeld, Thomas. "Proton Beam Radiotherapy - The State of the Art1" (PDF). AAPM. p. 16. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
- Wagenaar, Douglas (1995). "7.1.3 The Bragg Curve". Radiation Physics Principles. Archived from the original on 1 March 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
- "Bragg peak". Oxford Reference. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
- Hojo, Hidehiro (3 July 2017). "Difference in the relative biological effectiveness and DNA damage repair processes in response to proton beam therapy according to the positions of the spread out Bragg peak". Radiation Oncology. 12 (1): 111. doi:10.1186/s13014-017-0849-1. PMC 5494883. PMID 28673358. Retrieved 18 March 2021.
- Endo, Masahiro (20 October 2017). "Robert R. Wilson (1914–2000): the first scientist to propose particle therapy—use of particle beam for cancer treatment". Radiological Physics and Technology. 11 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1007/s12194-017-0428-z. PMID 29058267. S2CID 3526846. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
- Grun, Rebecca (10 January 2017). "Systematics of relative biological effectiveness measurements for proton radiation along the spread out Bragg peak: experimental validation of the local effect model". Physics in Medicine and Biology. 62 (3): 890–908. doi:10.1088/1361-6560/62/3/890. PMID 28072575. Retrieved 19 March 2021.


Excellent learning and peer-to-peer networking opportunities with a cross-section of the nuclear industry.
The world’s first certified professional development programme for individuals in nuclear security management.
An extensive archive of information on nuclear security, both from WINS and from external sources.
Helping licensees assess the maturity of their security programme and measure their security culture effectiveness.
This WINS International Best Practice Guide focuses on some of the basic principles, issues and considerations surrounding the security of radioactive sources in a medical facility.
It provides an overview of the responsibilities and liabilities of radioactive sources in a healthcare facility, beginning with the crucial role that leadership plays. It also explains the IAEA categories for radioactive sources, which range from extremely dangerous (Category 1) to most unlikely to be dangerous (Category 5), and explains some of the characteristics of radioactive sources that make them particularly attractive to an adversary.
In addition, the guide addresses the threats that potential adversaries pose, including the creation of a radiological dispersal device (i.e. dirty bomb); how to design and implement a security programme for a medical facility; and the kinds of information that should be addressed in a security plan.
The guide also discusses basic security principles, such as taking a graded approach, defence in depth, security by design, and implementing the four security objectives: deter, detect/assess, delay and respond. In addition, it explains why security culture is so important, how to address the insider threat, and the need to integrate safety and security.
Finally, the guide emphasises the need to optimise the security system, ensure staff competence and trustworthiness, plan for end of life, and consider adopting alternative technologies.