Foreign News

The 2011 Fukushima disaster — the worst nuclear accident in 25 years — threw a major wrench into China’s ambitious nuclear plans. It sent authorities scrambling to reassure people that they were not at risk of a similar catastrophe and sparked an immediate moratorium on new power plants. That ban was lifted this year. Now, China is gradually ramping up construction again. With around a dozen nuclear power plants in the works, China will overtake France as the number two producer of atomic energy worldwide within two years. If it continues with its aggressive plan, it will surpass the United States to become number one by 2030. China is the world’s largest consumer of energy, thanks mainly to industrial activity. This is only going to increase, with households expected to use nearly twice as much energy by 2040, according to the International Energy Agency. At present, some 60% of that energy consumption is powered by coal. But China is spending heavily on natural gas and nuclear power, as well as renewables — the country accounted for almost half of all investments in the latter globally in 2017.

KTVZ.com 14th Sept 2019 read more »

Russia’s first-floating nuclear power plant has arrived to its permanent base near an isolated Russian town across the Bering Strait from Alaska, Russian state nuclear energy company Rosatom said on Saturday. Developed by Rosatom, the plant, known as “Akademik Lomonosov”, set off on a 5,000 km (3,100 mile) journey on Aug. 23 through Arctic waters to reach the Chukotka region. Rosatom said it aims to make the floating station operational by the year-end. It would become the world’s northernmost nuclear power station. The plant will replace a coal-fired power plant and an aging nuclear power plant supplying more than 50,000 people with electricity in Chukotka.

London South East 14th Sept 2019 read more »

The European Commission must acknowledge the “critical role” that nuclear energy has to play under its sustainable finance initiative, European nuclear trade body Foratom said yesterday. The Commission, it said, should reconsider its decision to exclude nuclear from economic activities covered by the initiative. The Commission is examining how to integrate sustainability considerations into its financial policy framework in order to mobilise finance for sustainable growth. It says the current financial system needs to be better aligned with EU policies and foster investments that support the transition to a low-carbon, climate-resilient, more resource efficient and circular economy, while avoiding “further degradation of our natural capital and preserving financial stability”. It launched its Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth in March 2018, and adopted a package of measures in May 2018 implementing several key actions announced in that plan. In July 2018, a Technical Experts Group (TEG) on sustainable finance set up by the Commission began assisting it in developing a unified classification system for sustainable economic activities. The TEG published its Taxonomy Technical Report in June this year. Nuclear energy, however, was excluded from the list of sustainable economic activities.

World Nuclear News 13th Sept 2019 read more »

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said on Friday he will meet the new Saudi energy minister on Monday and likely discuss plans the kingdom has to build nuclear reactors.

Reuters 13th Sept 2019 read more »

IRSN will assess the risk of “sudden rupture” of reactors. IRSN, the technical arm of the French nuclear safety authority (ASN), said Thursday that it would evaluate the risk of “sudden rupture” of the defective welds of French nuclear reactors which are currently the subject of an investigation.

“The analysis of the risk of sudden failure is to be reconsidered because of the presence of residual stresses and the decrease in the tenacity of the material,” he added in a statement. The manufacturer Framatome had identified temperature anomalies that could impact the components of the welds, said the IRSN. At least five nuclear reactors of the French electricity utility EDF have been affected by a welding fault in steam generators, said Wednesday the president of the ASN. However, EDF and Framatome were “fairly confident” that steam generator inspections would reveal that they were safe, according to an IRSN official.

Montel News 13th Sept 2019 read more »

Capital 13th Sept 2019 read more »

EDF had another complicated week, with the discovery of manufacturing problems on certain parts that equip at least five nuclear reactors, raising fears of expensive shutdowns. The electrician announced Tuesday that the procedures planned had not been respected by its subsidiary Framatome during operations carried out “on certain steam generator welds”, large components of the power plants, during their manufacture. Steam generators are enormous equipment that serves as a heat exchanger between the water of the primary circuit and the water of the secondary circuit which turns into steam and supplies the turbine producing the electricity. The problem concerns equipment in service as well as new equipment that is not yet in service or installed on a site. According to the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN), it is a “twenty or so steam generators manufactured by Framatome from 2008 that are potentially concerned”. But the inventory has not yet been completed, since the recent discovery of this defect during tests carried out by the manufacturer. “At least five nuclear reactors are affected by this problem,” the 58 of the EDF park, detailed its president Bernard Doroszczuk Thursday in Le Figaro. He also said he could “take precautionary measures that can go until the shutdown of the reactors if necessary”.

Capital 13th Sept 2019 read more »

Why is India bent on bailing out the French nuclear industry at the cost of its own citizens’ lives? During his recent visit to France, the Prime Minister signed a joint agreement with his French counterpart on August 22, 2019. From a reading of that agreement, it appears that there was no discussion whatsoever between the two leaders on the safety aspects of the EPR reactors being manufactured by EDF. The agreement also failed to refer to any possible exchange of information between the nuclear regulators of the two countries on the subject. I have enclosed copies of the technical notices issued by ASN(here, here, and here), the French nuclear regulator to EDF on the numerous faults and deviations in the manufacture of EPR reactors supplied for the Flamanville nuclear power project in Finland. Extracted below is a para that highlights the multiple failures on the part of EDF.

Dianuke.org 13th Sept 2019 read more »

China is expected to come to the UN climate action summit with a more ambitious climate plan, a top UN official said on Wednesday. Speaking ahead of the high-level meeting convened by UN secretary general in New York on 23 September, UN special envoy on climate change Luis Alfonso de Alba said he was “very confident that China will come to the summit with a clear commitment on a number of areas… with a much higher level of ambition”. Referring to a statement signed by China, France and UN chief António Guterres on the margins of the G20 summit in July, De Alba said the communique had “made some important announcements”. “One of them is a commitment of China to enhance their [national climate plan] and to come in September with a proposal on that,” he said. The statement issued by Beijing and Paris reaffirmed their commitments to update their climate plans “in a manner representing a progression beyond the current one” and to publish their “long-term mid-century low greenhouse gas emissions development strategies by 2020”.

Climate Home News 11th Sept 2019 read more »

Japan’s new environment minister, the man popularly tipped as the country’s next leader, says that nuclear power should be abandoned in a challenge to the authority of the incumbent prime minister, Shinzo Abe. Shinjiro Koizumi marked his first day in the cabinet by directly contradicting government policy, which is to reopen nuclear reactors after the meltdown at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant in 2011.

Times 13th Sept 2019 read more »

Telegraph 12th Sept 2019 read more »

At least five nuclear reactors operated by French utility EDF might have problems with weldings on their steam generators, a fault which has raised fears of closures, France’s nuclear regulator was quoted as saying.

Euro News 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Reuters 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Framatome has identified a gap in the range of manufacturing of nuclear reactor equipment. This difference concerns the heat treatment of stress relieving applied to the welded joints made for the assembly of the different components of this equipment. The heat treatment was carried out by applying heating muffles. Framatome has recently demonstrated that this process does not allow to maintain a sufficiently homogeneous temperature over the entire length of the welded joint. Thus, the prescribed maximum temperature was exceeded on some circular portions of the welded joint, while in other portions the minimum temperature was not reached.

IRSN 12th Sept 2019 read more »

Undermined by intellectual inconsistencies and unaffordable issues, the economic debate about the treatment of nuclear waste and its alternatives is beyond rationality. The last public sessions of the National Program for Nuclear Waste and Materials Management (PNGDMR), organized by the National Commission for Public Debate (CNNDP), which have just ended, have been devoted to the economy and financing. downstream of the nuclear cycle. How much will cost Cigeo, can we save from the initial estimate, reserves will be sufficient …? All these questions are important, but their questions are deeply concerned. The problem of long time and taboos. Between the beginning of a reactor and its shutdown, it runs from 50 to 70 years. Its dismantling is spread over a period of around 50 years. Nuclear radioactive material (uranium, plutonium, minor actinides) remains radioactive, industrial processes of reprocessing, storage Potential storage of nuclear materials and high-level waste spans the times that often exceed the century.

Alternatives Economiques 12th Sept 2019 read more »

The Nuclear Free Local Authorities (NFLA) Steering Committee Chair is urgently writing to the Japanese Government to raise its deep concerns over comments made by its Environment Minister that over 1 million tonnes of radioactively contaminated water, used in cooling the stricken Fukushima reactors, could be dumped into the Pacific Ocean. The contaminated water is in over a thousand storage tanks on the Fukushima site. The water has been used to cool down the damaged reactors to prevent a wider radiation disaster. For the past couple of years nuclear regulatory agencies, and now a Government appointed expert panel, has been considering what to do with this material, which, while treated to take out some of the radioactive particles, still contains tritium. It has recently been reported by TEPCO (Tokyo Electric Power Company) that they will run out of space on the site to store the water in around 2022.

NFLA 11th Sept 2019 read more »