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Report from Fukushima (2) Minami Soma: A Woman Speaks Out on Her Health Problems in Pos... - 0 views

  • Teeth and toenails falling off and clumps of hair coming off, she reports in her blog. She doesn't seem to care any more if people dismiss her as fabricating the story, and just tells as a matter of fact what's been happening to her and her husband, probably both in their early 40s. They live in Minami Soma City in Fukushima Prefecture, within 25 kilometers from the wrecked plant. The district she and husband live have somehow escaped the designation of any "evacuation zone", even though she says the radiation is just as high or higher.
  • From the entry on 1/2/2012:Went to see the dentist on duty for the holidays, as I just couldn't stand the pain of my "dens caninus" tooth which was all exposed to the nerve.However, no matter how I explained to the dentist, he kept insisting that it would never go bad like this in such a short period of time (3 months).When I told him that my dental treatment had been completed before March 11, he didn't believe it. He just said "It's not possible".He said this could only happen if one didn't brush one's teeth for 2 to 3 years.I simply lost interest in trying to explain. My husband was there, and he tried to tell him, but he shut up when the doctor said "I only accept objective data."Until this summer, my teeth were healthy. My teeth were sturdy. Until this summer.
  • From the entry on 12/31/2011, on her friend's hair:A very good friend of mine since high school just dropped by to say hello. We occasionally talked over the phone about my head (balding and hair falling off) and her condition. She's 42 years old.She came wearing a wig. When she took it out, I had no words to say.She evacuated [after the accident] to the inland area near the Fukushima-Miyagi border. But when the reactors were exploding and when the vent was being done, she was right near by [in Minami Soma].
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  • She and I both started to lose hair in large quantities starting October. This is the head of a healthy, 42-year-old woman. She is quite active, and she works. Can you believe it? In 3 months she has lost so much hair. Now you understand why I wanted to cut my hair short to 3 centimeters long. Right now, I have more hair than her, but if I had kept it long I would have lost much more hair.When I saw her in October, she had her own hair in a bun.
  • From the entry on 12/27/2011:I went to see my doctor. The severe pain in the jaw is back, and it hurts like mad. My entire face below the nose hurts.The doctor gave me two kinds of pain killer this time. Now I'm better.He also drew blood for testing. We can't even begin to guess what it is, until we have the data.My doctor is appalled at what has happened to me in the last month - my teeth, thinning hair, bleeding that doesn't stop, severe pain in the jaw, fingernails dropping off. He said, "It's just unbelievable".Anyway, we will wait for the result of the blood test.I said to him, "I have a wig, so it will be OK". Then he replied, "Yes, and you can have full dentures!"
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89 sieverts per hour measured in soil near Columbia River in Washington - Worst contami... - 0 views

  • Hanford officials have settled on a plan to clean up what may be the most highly radioactive spill at the nuclear reservation. It depends on calling back into service the 47-year-old, oversized hot cell where the spill occurred to protect workers from the radioactive cesium and strontium that leaked through the hot cell to the soil below. Radioactivity in the contaminated soil, which is about 1,000 feet from the Columbia River, has been measured at 8,900 rad per hour [89 sieverts per hour]. Direct exposure for a few minutes would be fatal, according to Washington Closure. [...]
  • In the 1980s, cesium and strontium spilled inside the hot cell, according to a 1993 report that referenced the spill. Germany needed a heat source to use for tests of a repository for radioactive waste, which emits heat, and the cesium and strontium were being fabricated into the sources. “This was concentrated material,” said Mark French, the Department of Energy’s project director for Hanford cleanup along the Columbia River. [...]
  • It migrated down in a open square shape, with the worst contamination down to five or six feet deep, McBride said. There is not evidence that it has reached the ground water which is about 54 feet below the ground there and about 42 feet below the bottom of the hot cell [...]
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Areva, TVA Discuss Use of Mixed-Oxide Nuclear Fuel From Retired Weapons [21Feb11] - 1 views

  • French energy group Areva has entered tentative talks with the Tennessee Valley Authority that could pave the way for TVA’s nuclear plants to use fuel made from retired weapons. On Friday, the company announced it signed a letter of intent with TVA to initiate discussions on the use of fuel from the Department of Energy’s Mixed-Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility. While it would not obligate TVA to use the fuel, the letter highlights the agency’s ongoing relationship with DOE in evaluating the fuel-from-weapons program
  • Scheduled to begin operating in 2016, the mixed-oxide facility at DOE’s Savannah River site in South Carolina will blend plutonium from disassembled weapons with depleted uranium oxide, according to the National Nuclear Security Administration. Using the fuel in commercial reactors would make the plutonium unfit for explosives and help meet a commitment made by the United States and Russia in 2000 to dispose of 68 metric tons of surplus plutonium. Shaw Areva MOX Services Llc. holds the contract to build and operate the South Carolina facility
  • According to NNSA, more than 30 commercial reactors currently use mixed-oxide fuel, including at plants in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland.
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  • “As the world leader in MOX fuel production, Areva has a long, successful history of producing reliable mixed-oxide fuel in Europe and has many satisfied customers around the globe. We look forward to partnering with TVA as it evaluates the potential use of MOX fuel in its nuclear plants,” Jacques Besnainou, CEO of Areva North America, said in a release
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    pushing the notorious MOX fuel
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Difference between Nuclear engineer and Rad Engineer [20Jan11] - 0 views

  • A nuclear engineer knows how to split atoms, while a rad engineer knows how to clean up the mess there of.
  • A Radiological engineer is the engineer version of what you do (Or are studying to do), protect the public and laboratory or industrial workers against radiation. Measures to reduce exposure to radiation, etc.A Nuclear engineer deals with the utilization of the nuclear fission process, and is concerned with the design and construction of nuclear reactors and auxiliary facilities, the development and fabrication of special materials, and the handling and processing of reactor products.
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Southern Gambles on First U.S. Nuclear Reactors in a Generation [26Sep11] - 0 views

  • Southern Co. is poised to end a three-decade freeze on nuclear development as the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission holds a final hearing today before granting it a license to build and operate two reactors. The stakes for Atlanta-based Southern are greater than its bottom line, Chief Executive Officer Thomas Fanning said during two interviews. If there is to be a nuclear revival in the U.S., Southern, the largest U.S. power company, must deliver the $14 billion project on-time and on-budget, he said.
  • “We’ve got to be successful,” Fanning said during an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “This is the first, best shot for the nuclear renaissance in America.” Nuclear expansion ground to a halt in the U.S. as cost overruns, construction delays and a thicket of new regulations after Three Mile Island’s partial-meltdown in 1979 turned some plants into economic disasters, Ted Quinn, past president of the American Nuclear Society, said in a telephone interview.
  • A far worse accident at Japan’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear station this March so far hasn’t derailed Southern’s project at Plant Vogtle south of Augusta, Georgia, as critics predicted. Southern is on track to license the plant by early 2012, provided the commission certifies design changes for the Westinghouse AP1000 reactors that will power Vogtle, said Scott Burnell, a commission spokesman, in a telephone interview.
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  • Success at Vogtle could draw investors to other atomic projects on the drawing boards in Virginia, Florida and the Carolinas, Fanning said. Future Nuclear Development If Vogtle fails, Southern may prove that the time for massive nuclear reactors is over, moving the nation toward smaller modular reactors or away from atomic power altogether, said Chris Gadomski, lead nuclear analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
  • “If the new projects are fumbled -- over-budget, behind- schedule -- then utilities will be much more hesitant to start new nuclear construction,” Gadomski said in a telephone interview. Southern and its partners have invested more than $3 billion into the site since 2009, Fanning said, receiving special dispensation from the commission to begin work on cooling towers and other structures not deemed essential to nuclear safety while they awaited final approval to build the reactors.
  • So far, Vogtle’s new reactors remain under-budget and on schedule to begin producing power in 2016 and 2017, Southern said in a Sept. 20 filing with Georgia regulators. Georgia consumers will pay $6.1 billion of the project’s costs through rate hikes, while the Obama Administration has pledged loan guarantees for another $8.3 billion.
  • Challenges Remain Vogtle still faces challenges. U.S. Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, on Sept. 23 called for scrutiny of federal nuclear loan guarantees following the collapse of solar panel-maker Solyndra LLC, which received a $535 million loan guarantee. Vogtle’s opponents worry it will suffer the same cost overruns experienced by other first-of-a-kind reactors in the U.S. when new units were being built a generation ago, Sara Barczak, program director with the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, said in an interview.
  • She’s also concerned that Vogtle may have to be redesigned to comply with tougher seismic standards crafted following Fukushima and an August temblor in Virginia. “We want them to get it right, get it worked out, because all they’re going to do is cost ratepayers and taxpayers money,” said Barczak.
  • A Master Plan The 104 nuclear power plants built a generation ago in the U.S. were customized to each operator’s whims and built without a true master plan, said John Polcyn, a consultant and senior nuclear adviser who has worked on about two dozen plants in the U.S., Japan and China. “The one thing the industry has really gotten mature about is standardization,” Polcyn said. “Is it perfect? No. But I tell you we are eons better than we were the last go-round.”
  • Miller and Fanning have sophisticated software to monitor every element of the project and pre-fabricated construction that’s first being tested at two plants in China. Miller describes his management style as “Whac-A-Mole,” dealing with problems immediately as they arise and planning for every contingency. His approach has been tested as Southern and its partners deal with suppliers who haven’t built to nuclear construction’s exacting standards since the 1990s.
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NTI: Global Security Newswire - Senior U.S. Official Denies Talk of Foreign Nuclear Was... - 0 views

  • A senior U.S. Energy Department official on Wednesday disputed reports that the Obama administration has sought Mongolian support for construction of a storage site for international spent nuclear fuel in the Central Asian nation (see GSN, March 30).
  • The assertion -- made by a high-ranking official who asked not to be named in addressing a diplomatically sensitive issue -- directly countered remarks offered last spring by a veteran State Department official who leads U.S. nuclear trade pact negotiations. The diplomat, Richard Stratford, told a Washington audience in March that Energy Department leaders had made initial contacts with their counterparts in Ulaanbaatar about potential cooperation on a range of nuclear fuel services that Mongolia would like to develop for international buyers.
  • Among the possible features of a joint project, Stratford said, could be the creation of a repository for U.S.-origin fuel that has been used by Washington's partners in the region, potentially including Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. If brought to fruition, the proposal would be "a very positive step forward," he said at the time, because no nation around the globe thus far has successfully built a long-term storage facility for dangerous nuclear waste. The Obama administration in 2009 shuttered plans for a U.S. storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- which would have been the world's only permanent repository -- after prolonged debate over potential environmental and health hazards (see GSN, Sept. 13).
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  • n an interview this week with Global Security Newswire, the high-level Energy Department official said that discussions have focused on an array of potential nuclear energy market roles for Mongolia, from mining its substantial uranium reserves to fabricating fuel and more. However, the unofficial talks have not broached the idea of Mongolia becoming a recipient of foreign-origin spent fuel, the senior figure said. "I never thought about U.S. spent fuel. Never," the Energy official said. "I never even thought about it, much less discussed it." The Obama administration generally supports the idea of creating international operations for waste storage and other fuel-cycle functions that might help stem global nuclear proliferation, but "what the Mongolian government and the Mongolian people end up deciding they want to do is completely their decision and I would not dream of imposing our views on that," the senior official said. "There's no discussion of an international spent-fuel repository," added a second Energy Department official who participated in the same interview. "What has been included as part of the comprehensive fuel services discussions are potential long-term storage of Mongolian-origin used fuel that has Mongolian uranium [in it]."
  • Adding Value An evolving concept of nuclear fuel "leasing" would have the Mongolians build on their existing uranium ore resources to ultimately provide reactor-ready fuel to foreign nations and, additionally, stand ready to take back used uranium fuel rods once they are depleted, according to reports. The idea, said the more junior Energy official, is that Mongolia could "potentially add long-term storage as part of the value of that uranium resource to potential buyers." Even if foreign-origin spent fuel cannot be stored in Mongolia, the nation's talks with its international partners might yet allow for U.S., Japanese or other companies to build facilities in the Central Asian nation to produce Mongolian fuel for sale abroad, which could later be returned to Ulaanbaatar for storage after it is used.
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There are at least 10 reasons to say 'no' to nuclear energy (India) [09Oct11] - 0 views

  • 1. Nuclear power involves radiation exposure at all stages of its fuel cycle: from uranium mining and fuel fabrication to reactor operation and maintenance; to spent-fuel handling, storage and re-processing. 2. Reactors leave a toxic trail of high-level radioactive wastes which remain hazardous for thousands of years.
  • 3. The half-life of plutonium-239 produced by fission is 24,000 years. We have neither any way of storing nuclear wastes safely for such long periods nor nuetralising or disposing of them. Should we burden posterity with such a legacy?
  • 4. Nuclear power is exorbitantly expensive if all the hidden costs are taken into account. That is why the private sector has not come forward to set up a nuclear power plant. 5. The industry claims nuclear power is safe but it is not. That is why it expends considerable effort in lobbying for laws to limit the operator’s or supplier’s liability for accidents to artificially low levels.
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  • 6. The industry acknowledges that nuclear power carries high risks of damage but wants governments, that is, the public, to subsidise and absorb them. 7. India has no independent authority that can evolve safety standards and regulate reactors for safety.
  • 8. India’s energy security could be achieved by a careful mix of conventional with biomass, solar-thermal and wind, as experts have pointed out. 9. After Fukushima, advanced countries had a rethink on nuclear power expansion plans and imposed a moratorium on new reactors. India, on the other hand, is planning a necklace of nuclear power plants along its coastline, unmindful of what it means to its fragile ecology and displacement of traditional fishermen.
  • 10. Last, but not the least, there are better and safer ways of boiling water to produce steam to turn turbines that generate electricity.
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Intelligent absorbent removes radioactive material from water 01Nov11[ - 0 views

  • Nuclear power plants are located close to sources of water, which is used as a coolant to handle the waste heat discharged by the plants. This means that water contaminated with radioactive material is often one of the problems to arise after a nuclear disaster. Researchers at Australia's Queensland University of Technology (QUT) have now developed what they say is a world-first intelligent absorbent that is capable of removing radioactive material from large amounts of contaminated water, resulting in clean water and concentrated waste that can be stored more efficiently. The new absorbent, which was developed by a QUT research team led by Professor Huai-Yong Zhu working in collaboration with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and Pennsylvania State University, uses titanate nanofiber and nanotube technology. Unlike current clean-up methods, such as a layered clays and zeolites, the new material is able to efficiently lock in deadly radioactive material from contaminated water and the used absorbents can then be safely disposed of without the risk of leakage - even if the material were to become wet.
  • When the contaminated water is run through the fine nanotubes and fibers, the radioactive Cesium (Cs+) ions are trapped through a structural change. Additionally, by adding silver oxide nanocrystals to the outer surface, the nanostructures are able to capture and immobilize radioactive iodine (I-) ions used in treatments for thyroid cancer, in probes and markers for medical diagnosis, and also found in leaks of nuclear accidents. "One gram of the nanofibres can effectively purify at least one ton of polluted water," Professor Zhu said. "This saves large amounts of dangerous water needing to be stored somewhere and also prevents the risk of contaminated products leaking into the soil." "Australia is one of the largest producers of titania that are the raw materials used for fabricating the absorbents of titanate nanofibres and nanotubes. Now with the knowledge to produce the adsorbents, we have the technology to do the cleaning up for the world," added Professor Zhu.
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