Much more than a world first image of radioactive cesium atoms

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

 

IMAGE: 

FIGURE 1. (LEFT) A STRUCTURE MODEL OF POLLUCITE AND A SIMULATED HAADF-STEM IMAGE USING MACTEMPAS. (RIGHT) A HIGH RESOLUTION HAADF-STEM IMAGE OF IRON-RICH POLLUCITE IN THE CSMPS. THE CS ATOMS IN THE IMAGE APPEAR AS BRIGHT SPOTS (CIRCLED IN THE IMAGE). APPROXIMATELY HALF OF THE CS ATOMS IN THE STRUCTURE ARE RADIOACTIVE. RADIOACTIVE CS ATOMS HAVE NOT BEEN IMAGED BEFORE FROM ENVIRONMENTAL SAMPLES.

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CREDIT: KANAKO MIYAZAKI ET. AL.

Thirteen years after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP), a breakthrough in analysis has permitted a world first: direct imaging of radioactive cesium (Cs) atoms in environmental samples.

The groundbreaking analysis, completed by a team of researchers in Japan, Finland, America, and France, analyzing materials emitted from the damaged FDNPP reactors, reveals important insights into the lingering environmental and radioactive waste management challenges faced in Japan. The study, titled ““Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant” has just been published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. It can be accessed here for free.

The Fukushima Daiichi Meltdowns: A Continuing Engineering and Environmental Puzzle

In 2011, after the Great Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, 3 nuclear reactors at the FDNPP underwent meltdowns due to a loss of back-up power and cooling. Since then, extensive research efforts have focused on understanding the properties of fuel debris (the mixture of melted nuclear fuels and structural materials), found within the damaged reactors. That debris must be carefully removed and disposed of.

However, many uncertainties remain concerning the physical and chemical state of the fuel debris and this greatly complicates retrieval efforts.

Attempts to Understand the Chemistry of Radioactive Cesium Results in a World First

A significant amount of radioactive Cs was released from the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors in particulate form. The particles, termed Cs-rich microparticles (CsMPs), are poorly soluble, small (< 5 µm) and have a glass-like composition.

Prof. Satoshi Utsunomiya from Kyushu University, Japan, led the current study. He explained that the CsMPs “formed in the bottom of the damaged reactors during the meltdowns, when molten nuclear fuel impacted concrete.”

After formation, many CsMPs were lost from the reactor containment into the surrounding environment.

Detailed characterization of CsMPs has revealed important clues about the mechanisms and extent of the meltdowns. However, despite abundant Cs in the microparticles, direct atomic scale imaging of radioactive Cs in the particles has proven impossible.

Prof. Gareth Law, a study collaborator from the University of Helsinki, explained that “this means we lack full information on the chemical form of Cs in the particles and fuel debris.”

Utsunomiya continued, “whilst Cs in the particles is present at reasonably high concentrations, it is often still too low for successful atomic scale imaging using advanced electron microscopy techniques. When Cs is found at a high enough concentration, we have found that the electron beam damages the sample, rendering resulting data useless”. However, in the team’s previous work using a state-of-the-art high-resolution high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscope (HR-HAADF-STEM), they found inclusions of a mineral called pollucite (a zeolite) within CsMPs. Law explained that “in past analysis we showed that the iron-rich pollucite inclusions in the CsMPs contained >20 wt.% Cs. In nature, pollucite is generally aluminum-rich.

The pollucite in the CsMPs was clearly different to that in nature indicating it formed in the reactors.” Utsunomiya continued, “because we knew that most of the Cs in CsMPs is fission derived, we thought that analysis of the pollucite could yield the first ever direct images of radioactive Cs atoms”.

Zeolites can become amorphous when subjected to electron beam irradiation, but that damage is related to the composition of the zeolite, and the team found that some pollucite inclusions were stable in the electron beam.

Learning this and informed by modelling, the team set about pain-staking analysis that saw Utsunomiya, graduate student Kanako Miyazaki, and the team finally image radioactive Cs atoms.  

Utsunomiya explained:

“It was incredibly exciting to see the beautiful pattern of Cs atoms in the pollucite structure, where about half of the atoms in the image correspond to radioactive Cs.”

He continued: “this is first time humans have directly imaged radioactive Cs atoms in an environmental sample. Finding concentrations of radioactive Cs high enough in environmental samples that would permit direct imaging is unusual and presents safety issues. Whilst it was exciting to make a scientific world first image, at the same time it’s sad that this was only possible due to a nuclear accident.”

Scientists collected samples of contaminated soil near the damaged Fukushima Daiichi reactors.

CREDIT

Satoshi Utsunomiya

More than an Imaging Breakthrough

Utsunomiya emphasized that the study's findings are broader than mere imaging of radioactive Cs atoms: “Our work sheds light on pollucite formation and the likely heterogeneity of Cs distribution within the FDNPP reactors and the environment.”

Law further underscored relevance: “we unequivocally demonstrate a new Cs occurrence associated with the materials emitted from the FDNPP reactors. Finding Cs containing pollucite in CsMPs likely means it also remains in the damaged reactors; as such, its properties can now be considered in reactor decommissioning and waste management strategies.”

Collaborator Emeritus Prof. Bernd Grambow from Subatech, IMT Atlantique Nantes University, added that: “we should now also begin to consider the environmental behavior or Cs-pollucite and its possible impacts. It likely behaves differently to other forms of Cs fallout documented thus far. Also,the effect on human health might have to be considered. The chemical reactivity of pollucite in the environment and in body fluids is certainly different than that of other forms of deposited radioactive Cs”. Finally reflecting on the study's significance, Prof. Rod Ewing from Stanford University underscored the pressing need for continued research to inform debris removal strategies and environmental remediation: “yet again, we see that the pain-staking analytical efforts of international scientists really can unlock the mysteries of nuclear accidents, aiding long-term recovery efforts.”

The study, titled "Invisible radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant," is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. The work was supported by bilateral funding from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the Research Council of Finland.

Citation of the Article

Title: “Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Authors: Kanako Miyazaki, Masato Takehara, Kenta Minomo, Kenji Horie, Mami Takehara, Shinya Yamasaki, Takumi Saito, Toshihiko Ohnuki, Masahide Takano, Hiroyuki Shiotsu, Hajime Iwata, Gianni F. Vettese, Mirkka P. Sarparanta, Gareth, T. W. Law, Bernd Grambow, Rodney C. Ewing, and Satoshi Utsunomiya

Journal: Journal of Hazardous Materials

Link to paper (free access): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304389424006836

DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.134104

Contact details

Satoshi Utsunomiya: utsunomiya.satoshi.998@m.kyushu-u.ac.jp

(Web page: http://www.scc.kyushu-u.ac.jp/ircl/utu-e/index-e.htm)

Gareth Law: gareth.law@helsinki.fi

(Web page: https://researchportal.helsinki.fi/en/persons/gareth-law)

Rod Ewing: rewing1@stanford.edu

 

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JOURNAL

Journal of Hazardous Materials

DOI

10.1016/j.jhazmat.2024.134104 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

“Invisible” radioactive cesium atoms revealed: Pollucite inclusion in cesium-rich microparticles (CsMPs) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant

Nuclear waste to be buried 650ft under the English countryside

Jonathan Leake
Thu, 16 May 2024 

New pit will ease pressure on the 17 nuclear waste disposal plants, the largest of which is the Sellafield site in Cumbria - Stuart Nicol

Swathes of nuclear waste are set to be buried in the English countryside after ministers agreed to dig a 650ft pit starting this decade.

The facility, which has yet to be allocated a site, will hold some of the 5m tonnes of waste that was generated by nuclear power stations over the past seven decades.

This will ease pressure on the 17 nuclear waste disposal plants currently in operation around the country, which consist of giant sheds and cooling ponds.

The largest facility is the Sellafield site in Cumbria.

Plans for the 650ft pit will see it house so-called intermediate-level waste, possibly in a mine on a pre-existing nuclear site to minimise planning objections.


The facility will be separate from the much deeper geological disposal site that will hold the UK’s most dangerous waste, such as plutonium, which is unlikely to be built until after 2050.

The proposals come amid fears Britain’s stockpile of nuclear waste will grow in the coming decades with nowhere to put it.

Concerns are particularly acute as the Government is currently planning to build at least three new nuclear power stations.

This will put the country at odds with the 1976 review of nuclear waste policy by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, which warned the UK was accumulating nuclear waste so fast that it should stop building reactors until it had a solution.

Ministers want to brand nuclear energy as a “green” and “sustainable” fuel.

However, experts on the Government’s own advisory body, the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, have said such terms are misleading if there is no safe place to store radioactive waste.

Plans for a nuclear waste pit were recently published by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (Desnz), headed by Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho.

A government spokesman said: “In addition to long-term plans to dispose of the most hazardous radioactive waste in a geological disposal facility hundreds of metres underground, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority will explore a facility closer to the surface for less hazardous radioactive waste.

“While a geological disposal facility is not expected to be ready until the 2050s, a shallower disposal facility – which is up to 200m below ground – could be available within 10 years.”

Nuclear waste can remain dangerous for tens of thousands of years, with fears of disposing of it underground stemming from the fact water can flow through waste, carrying radioactivity back to the surface.

However, once buried and sealed with cement, such waste will be practically impossible to reach should there be such a problem.

Nuclear accidents are rare but when they do happen the consequences can be deadly and extremely expensive.

This was evidenced by the disastrous fire at the Sellafield site in 1957, which released radioactivity across the UK and Europe.

Other accidents at Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986 and Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 were even more devastating.

The Government’s proposals come after policymakers recently announced the biggest expansion of nuclear power for 70 years.

Hinkley Point C is already under construction in Somerset at an estimated cost of £46bn, while Sizewell C in Suffolk is also about to start with a similar price tag.

A third giant nuclear station is also being planned alongside a fleet of so-called small modular reactors.

Andrew Bowie, the minister for nuclear energy, said: “We’re taking sensible steps to manage our radioactive waste, while reducing the burden on the environment and taxpayer.”

David Peattie, chief executive officer at the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, added: “We will maintain the highest standards of safety and environmental protection to deliver our nationally important decommissioning mission.”

As for the much larger geological disposal facility, which will hold the UK’s deadliest waste, this will soon become Britain’s biggest and most expensive infrastructure project ever.

Two sites are under consideration for the facility, which is expected to be 3,500ft deep.

One lies off the coast of Lincolnshire and the other is off the coast of Cumbria around Copeland.

Medics at UCLA protest say police weapons drew blood and cracked bones

Molly Castle Work and Brett Kelman

USA TODAY
Updated Wed, May 15, 2024 

Inside the protesters' encampment at UCLA, beneath the glow of hanging flashlights and a deafening backdrop of exploding flash-bangs, OB-GYN resident Elaine Chan suddenly felt like a battlefield medic.

Police were pushing into the camp after an hours-long standoff. Chan, 31, a medical tent volunteer, said protesters limped in with severe puncture wounds, but there was little hope of getting them to a hospital through the chaos outside. Chan suspects the injuries were caused by rubber bullets or other “less lethal” projectiles, which police have confirmed were fired at protesters.

“It would pierce through skin and gouge deep into people’s bodies,” she said. “All of them were profusely bleeding. In OB-GYN we don’t treat rubber bullets. … I couldn’t believe that this was allowed to be (done to) civilians — students — without protective gear.”

The UCLA protest, which gathered thousands in opposition to Israel’s ongoing bombing of Gaza, began in April and grew to a dangerous crescendo this month when counterprotesters and police clashed with the activists and their supporters.

In interviews with KFF Health News, Chan and three other volunteer medics described treating protesters with bleeding wounds, head injuries, and suspected broken bones in a makeshift clinic cobbled together in tents with no electricity or running water. The medical tents were staffed day and night by a rotating team of doctors, nurses, medical students, EMTs, and volunteers with no formal medical training.

At times, the escalating violence outside the tent isolated injured protesters from access to ambulances, the medics said, so the wounded walked to a nearby hospital or were carried beyond the borders of the protest so they could be driven to the emergency room.

“I’ve never been in a setting where we’re blocked from getting higher level of care,” Chan said. “That was terrifying to me.”

Three of the medics interviewed by KFF Health News said they were present when police swept the encampment May 2 and described multiple injuries that appeared to have been caused by “less lethal” projectiles.

Less lethal projectiles — including beanbags filled with metal pellets, sponge-tipped rounds, and projectiles commonly known as rubber bullets — are used by police to subdue suspects or disperse crowds or protests. Police drew widespread condemnation for using the weapons against Black Lives Matter demonstrations that swept the country after the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Although the name of these weapons downplays their danger, less lethal projectiles can travel upward of 200 mph and have a documented potential to injure, maim, or kill.

The medics’ interviews directly contradict an account from the Los Angeles Police Department. After police cleared the encampment, LAPD Chief Dominic Choi said in a post on the social platform X that there were “no serious injuries to officers or protestors'' as police moved in and made more than 200 arrests.

In response to questions from KFF Health News, both the LAPD and California Highway Patrol said in emailed statements that they would investigate how their officers responded to the protest. The LAPD statement said the agency was conducting a review of how it and other law enforcement agencies responded, which would lead to a “detailed report.”

The Highway Patrol statement said officers warned the encampment that “non-lethal rounds” may be used if protesters did not disperse, and after some became an “immediate threat” by “launching objects and weapons,” some officers used “kinetic specialty rounds to protect themselves, other officers, and members of the public.” One officer received minor injuries, according to the statement.

Video footage that circulated online after the protest appeared to show a Highway Patrol officer firing less lethal projectiles at protesters with a shotgun.

“The use of force and any incident involving the use of a weapon by CHP personnel is a serious matter, and the CHP will conduct a fair and impartial investigation to ensure that actions were consistent with policy and the law,” the Highway Patrol said in its statement.

The UCLA Police Department, which was also involved with the protest response, did not respond to requests for comment.

Police face-off with pro-Palestinian students after destroying part of the encampment barricade on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in Los Angeles, California, early on May 2, 2024. Police deployed a heavy presence on US university campuses on May 1 after forcibly clearing away some weeks-long protests against Israel's war with Hamas.

Jack Fukushima, 28, a UCLA medical student and volunteer medic, said he witnessed a police officer shoot at least two protesters with less lethal projectiles, including a man who collapsed after being hit “square in the chest.” Fukushima said he and other medics escorted the stunned man to the medical tent then returned to the front lines to look for more injured.

“It did really feel like a war,” Fukushima said. “To be met with such police brutality was so disheartening.”

Back on the front line, police had breached the borders of the encampment and begun to scrum with protesters, Fukushima said. He said he saw the same officer who had fired earlier shoot another protester in the neck.

The protester dropped to the ground. Fukushima assumed the worst and rushed to his side.

“I find him, and I’m like, ‘Hey, are you OK?’” Fukushima said. “To the point of courage of these undergrads, he’s like, ‘Yeah, it’s not my first time.’ And then just jumps right back in.”

Sonia Raghuram, 27, another medical student stationed in the tent, said that during the police sweep she tended to a protester with an open puncture wound on their back, another with a quarter-sized contusion in the center of their chest, and a third with a “gushing” cut over their right eye and possible broken rib. Raghuram said patients told her the wounds were caused by police projectiles, which she said matched the severity of their injuries.

The patients made it clear the police officers were closing in on the medical tent, Raghuram said, but she stayed put.

“We will never leave a patient,” she said, describing the mantra in the medical tent. “I don’t care if we get arrested. If I’m taking care of a patient, that’s the thing that comes first.”

The UCLA protest is one of many that have been held on college campuses across the country as students opposed to Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza demand universities support a ceasefire or divest from companies tied to Israel. Police have used force to remove protesters at Columbia University, Emory University, and the universities of Arizona, Utah, and South Florida, among others.

At UCLA, student protesters set up a tent encampment on April 25 in a grassy plaza outside the campus’s Royce Hall theater, eventually drawing thousands of supporters, according to the Los Angeles Times. Days later, a “violent mob” of counterprotesters “attacked the camp,” the Times reported, attempting to tear down barricades along its borders and throwing fireworks at the tents inside.

The following night, police issued an unlawful assembly order, then swept the encampment in the early hours of May 2, clearing tents and arresting hundreds by dawn.

Police have been widely criticized for not intervening as the clash between protesters and counterprotesters dragged on for hours. The University of California system announced it has hired an independent policing consultant to investigate the violence and “resolve unanswered questions about UCLA’s planning and protocols, as well as the mutual aid response.”

Charlotte Austin, 34, a surgery resident, said that as counterprotesters were attacking she also saw about 10 private campus security officers stand by, “hands in their pockets,” as students were bashed and bloodied.

Austin said she treated patients with cuts to the face and possible skull fractures. The medical tent sent at least 20 people to the hospital that evening, she said.

“Any medical professional would describe these as serious injuries,” Austin said. “There were people who required hospitalization — not just a visit to the emergency room — but actual hospitalization.”
Police Tactics ‘Lawful but Awful’

UCLA protesters are far from the first to be injured by less lethal projectiles.

In recent years, police across the U.S. have repeatedly fired these weapons at protesters, with virtually no overarching standards governing their use or safety. Cities have spent millions to settle lawsuits from the injured. Some of the wounded have never been the same.

During the nationwide protests following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, at least 60 protesters sustained serious injuries — including blinding and a broken jaw — from being shot with these projectiles, sometimes in apparent violations of police department policies, according to a joint investigation by KFF Health News and USA TODAY.

Fractured skulls, lost eyes: Police break their own rules when shooting protesters with ‘rubber bullets’

'Less lethal' can still maim and kill A visual guide to weapons police use on protesters

Those maimed say enough is enough Police use of rubber bullets, bean bag rounds has left a bloody trail for decades.

In 2004, in Boston, a college student celebrating a Red Sox victory was killed by a projectile filled with pepper-based irritant when it tore through her eye and into her brain.

“They’re called less lethal for a reason,” said Jim Bueermann, a former police chief of Redlands, California, who now leads the Future Policing Institute. “They can kill you.”

Bueermann, who reviewed video footage of the police response at UCLA at the request of KFF Health News, said the footage shows California Highway Patrol officers firing beanbag rounds from a shotgun. Bueermann said the footage did not provide enough context to determine if the projectiles were being used “reasonably,” which is a standard established by federal courts, or being fired “indiscriminately,” which was outlawed by a California law in 2021.

“There is a saying in policing — ‘lawful but awful’ — meaning that it was reasonable under the legal standards but it looks terrible,” Bueermann said. “And I think a cop racking multiple rounds into a shotgun, firing into protesters, doesn’t look very good.”

This article was produced by KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. KFF Health News is the publisher of California Healthline, an editorially independent service of the California Health Care Foundation.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UCLA protest violence: medics say police broke bones and drew blood

GREENWASHING

EDF secures 'green' financing for extended operation of reactors

French utility EDF has signed green bank loans for a total amount of about EUR5.8 billion (USD6.3 billion), which will be used to finance the life extension of its existing nuclear power plant fleet in France.

The Tricastin plant comprises four 900 MWe PWRs (Image: EDF/Toma/M Hake)

The loans - which have maturities of between 3 and 5 years - have been arranged with major international banks, including BNP Paribas, Bank of America, Crédit Agricole CIB, ING, Natixis CIB, Société Générale and Wells Fargo.

EDF announced its Grand Carénage life extension programme for the existing fleet in France in 2011. Under this investment programme, the company planned to spend around EUR55 billion by 2025 on upgrading its plants to improve their performance and enable their continued operation beyond 40 years. The programme also includes safety upgrades in response to the Fukushima Daiichi accident in Japan.

The investment was optimised and revised to EUR45 billion in 2018, and in 2020 EDF adjusted the programme's cost to EUR49.4 billion.

A green bilateral loan worth EUR1 billion was announced by EDF and Credit Agricole CIB in November 2022.

EDF noted that the investments in the extension of the operation of its reactors "are aligned with the European taxonomy".

In July 2022, the European Parliament voted to include certain nuclear and gas activities within the European Union's list of officially approved "green" investments.

In February 2021, the country's nuclear safety regulator, the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN), set the conditions for the continued operation of EDF's 900 MWe reactors beyond 40 years. The regulator said it considered the measures planned by EDF combined with those prescribed by ASN will ensure the safety of the units for a further 10 years of operation.

In August 2023, unit 1 of the Tricastin nuclear power plant in southern France became the first French power reactor licensed to operate beyond 40 years.

EDF operates three pressurised water reactor designs, known as the 900 MWe, the 1300 MWe and the 1450 MWe N4. Its 32 operating 900 MWe reactors came into commercial operation between 1977 and 1988, and include the oldest of the country's current nuclear fleet. Such reactors are in operation at EDF's Blayais, Bugey, Chinon, Cruas-Meysse, Dampierre, Gravelines, Saint-Laurent and Tricastin nuclear power plants.

ASN said the improvements and measures will be applied to each reactor individually during their fourth periodic safety reviews, scheduled to run until 2031. These reviews will take the particularities of each facility into account, it said. The measures planned by EDF for each reactor will be subject to a public inquiry.

13 May 2024

Authorisation issued for Flamanville EPR commissioning

08 May 2024

France's nuclear regulator has authorised the commissioning of the Flamanville EPR reactor, which has a summer 2024 target for connection to the grid.

Flamanville (Image: Screengrab from EDF/Youtube)

The authorisation from the Autorité de Sûreté Nucléaire (ASN) means EDF can now load nuclear fuel into the reactor and carry out start-up tests and then operation of the reactor. Within hours of the authorisation being announced EDF said it had begun to load nuclear fuel assemblies into the reactor vessel - adding that it would take several days to load the 241 fuel assemblies.

The ASN decision follows a public consultation which ran from 27 March until 17 April.

ASN issued technical requirements alongside the authorisation saying it would supervise the performance and monitoring of installation start-up tests after fuel loading and also specify methods for acting on feedback from other EPR-type reactors around the world. The first EPR units came online at Taishan in China, where unit 1 became the first EPR to enter commercial operation in 2018 followed by Taishan 2 in September 2019. In Europe, Olkiluoto 3 in Finland entered commercial operation in 2023 and two units are under construction at Hinkley Point C in the UK.

Construction work began in December 2007 on the 1650 MWe unit at the Flamanville site in Normandy - where two reactors have been operating since 1986 and 1987. The dome of the reactor building was put in place in July 2013 and the reactor vessel was installed in January 2014. The reactor was originally expected to start commercial operation in 2013. In December 2022 the total cost at completion of the project was estimated by EDF to be EUR13.2 billion (USD14.2 billion).

China and France aim to strengthen nuclear energy cooperation

09 May 2024

China's CGN and France's EDF have signed a Letter of Intent on deepening and expanding cooperation on nuclear energy - it came as President Emmanuel Macron hosted a visit to France by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

(Image: China Xinhua News/X)

Acording to the Chinese Foreign Ministry report on the talks, President Xi said the two countries should step up cooperation in a number of areas, including "nuclear energy, innovation and finance", with President Macron responding that France was "ready to step up cooperation with China" in areas including "nuclear energy for civilian use".

During the visit there were a number of business cooperation agreements outlined, with the Letter of Intent on Deepening Related Cooperation in the Nuclear Energy Field signed by Yang Changli, Chairman of China General Nuclear (CGN), and EDF Chairman and CEO Luc Raymond.

According to CGN the letter of intent means "the two parties will further expand and strengthen cooperation in aspects such as nuclear power engineering construction, talent training, EPR operations and leadership training in the field of nuclear power operations to achieve common development".

CGN and EDF have worked together over many years, dating back to the Daya Bay nuclear power plant's construction, which began in the 1980s, and CGN said that deepening and expanding cooperation areas "is of great significance to the development of civil nuclear energy in both countries and the business development of the two groups".

China and France are two of the world's biggest generators of nuclear energy, with both having large-scale plans to expand capacity in the coming years. According to World Nuclear Association figures, both countries currently have 56 operable reactors. China's have a capacity of 54 GW and it has 27 more reactors under construction which would provide 28.9 GW more capacity. France currently has 61 GW nuclear energy capacity, with one more 1.6 GW reactor under construction. 

Researched and written by World Nuclear News

Campaigners say “no thanks – no more nukes” outside US embassy in London

 

13th May 2024Leave a Commenton Campaigners say “no thanks – no more nukes” outside US embassy in London

“It’s absolutely essential that we are not participating in a further nuclear escalation. Our view is no more U.S. nuclear weapons, no thanks.”

Kate Hudson, CND General Secretary

Labour Outlook’s Sam Browse reports from this weekend’s demonstration against US nuclear weapons at Lakenheath.

On Saturday, to music and song, demonstrators gathered outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms, London, to send a clear message that new US nuclear weapons are not welcome in the UK.

The protest follows the announcement that US nuclear weapons would be returning to the UK after campaigners had successfully pushed for their removal in 2008.

Kate Hudson, General Secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the organisers of the demonstration, told Labour Outlook, “we’re here today, outside the US embassy, to say that we don’t want US nukes to come back to Britain. We know that later in the year, most likely, they’re going to be bringing nuclear weapons to Lakenheath airbase in East Anglia. That’s a disaster for the local community, but it’s not just a local or regional issue; this is something that affects the whole of Britain because those nuclear weapons put us on the US nuclear frontline in any war that they are conducting and it makes not only Lakenheath but the whole of Britain a target.”

“At a time when we have two conflicts in the world, in Ukraine and Gaza, where nuclear weapons are a factor – where nuclear weapons could be used – it’s absolutely essential that we are not participating in a further nuclear escalation.”

“Our view is no nuclear weapons, no more U.S. nuclear weapons, no thanks.”

Lindsey German, the convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, told the gathered audience “we need to get across how severe this threat is and how much our government and the United States are escalating the threat of nuclear war”.

“When you think what they’re trying to do at Lakenheath, they’re trying to bring back nuclear weapons that we got rid of in 2008 – and that was a great victory for the movement. We need to remember these victories, but we shouldn’t let them bring back nuclear weapons by stealth”.

Jess Barnard, a peace activist and member of Labour’s NEC, told the crowd, “I can’t think of a more urgent time for us to be resisting allowing the UK to be a pawn for the US war machine. As bombs continue to rain down on Gaza and we are witnessing the crime of genocide being committed against Palestinians, the UK and the US who have continued to arm Israel will forever be remembered for their complicity.”

Jess Barnard, Labour NEC members’ representative addresses the CND demonstration outside the US embassy on May 11th, 2024. Photo credit: Labour Outlook

“Just yesterday the US conceded its weapons may have been used to commit war crimes against the Palestinian people. We have to say ‘enough is enough’. What more evidence do we need that the UK should not allow the US to put us on the nuclear frontline?”

However, she also had strong words for the leader of the Labour Party, Keir Starmer: “the words of the Labour leader and his appalling record on defending the rights of Palestinians do not represent Labour members or the kind of government a Labour government should strive to be. They do not represent the world we should aspire to be a part of.”

Campaigners also made connections between nuclear weapons and the dash for nuclear power, with Sam Mason, coordinator of the Climate Justice Coalition trade union caucus, pointing to how both domestic and military nuclear programmes were interlinked. Shigeo Kobayashi of Japanese Against a Nuclear UK, similarly argued “we cannot assume that there will be no more nuclear accidents. Nuclear power is currently neither green nor cheap”. The campaign organise regular vigils outside the Japanese Embassy in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.

As today’s speakers reminded us, we must continue to demand a nuclear-free world, and say loudly and clearly: no to new nukes in the UK!

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• Sam Browse is a regular columnist for Labour Outlook and an organiser of Arise Festival. You can follow Sam on Twitter/X here.

Germany’s CDU, scenting power, tacks Right with new party programme

8 May 2024

Paddy Belton

Germany’s Christian Democrats (CDU) has adopted a party programme that positions it distinctly more to the Right from its centrist orientation under former chancellor Angela Merkel.

Among the new manifesto proposals revealed on May 7 are requiring immigrants to sign up for Germany’s Leitkultur, or dominant culture, with a body of beliefs that include recognising Israel’s right to exist.

Other proposals in the programme included sending refugees to “safe third countries” (a nod to the UK’s Rwanda policy), bringing back nuclear power and introducing an obligatory “year of service” to benefit society for school leavers. Regarding “green” policy, the party adopted a line of “leaving it to inventors” to develop technological solutions to climate change.

The new programme reflected an attempt to distinguish the CDU’s party leader Friedrich Merz, leading in polls with around 30 per cent, from a Chancellor Olaf Scholz whose coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals is performing poorly.

Scholz’s Social Democrats currently ranks at around 15.5 per cent, the Greens 12 per cent and Liberals 5 per cent.

The rise of the AfD, coming in at 18 per cent in a May 6 poll, suggests more swing votes may lie to the Right.

On Europe, the programme is “pro EU but with some EU-sceptic language”, said German broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s Michaele Kuefner.

Brexit “wouldn’t have happened if Europe had made more concessions to the UK”, Merz said during the conference, adding that Merkel’s Germany was partly to blame.

Merz was a former rival to Merkel, shunted aside in a power struggle in the 2000s, and many aspects of the programme – the party’s first since 2007 – are pointed reversals of Merkel’s policies.

Merkel had abolished the draft, allowed more than 1 million refugees to settle in Germany in 2015-6, and phased out nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan.

Merz “is trying to overcome his trauma, the trauma of being pushed out by Merkel”, said Berlin-based columnist Maurice Höfgen.

For a Merz who appears to be keen on abolishing Merkel’s legacy, there could also be one more trophy to be claimed: European Commission President and European People’s Party (EPP) member Ursula von der Leyen, now seen as close to Scholz’s Government.

In France, French President Emmanuel Macron currently is looking to “form an EPP alliance with Merz”, to displace von der Leyen with an alternative candidate as EC chief, said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group.

His climate policy line also appeared pitched to a moment of growing scepticism with von der Leyen’s Green Deal, even if it caused German science writer Christian Scharun to retort: “we have already invented the necessary technologies and are just not using them sufficiently.”

Merz has been the CDU’s leader since 2022 and is still attempting to put his stamp on a party he has only led in opposition.

At the party conference, he faced the danger of being eclipsed by Bavarian chief minister Markus Söder.

This was the problem of “when your guest act becomes the top act at the party conference that just re-elected you as leader”, quipped Kuefner.

Other ambitious challengers also beckon in the CDU’s wings, including North Rhine-Westphalia’s chief minister.

“The media are betting on Hendrik Wüst,” said German journalist Roland Tichy.

Japan-Russia tensions flare over Ukraine war amid decades-long land disputes

May 08, 2024 
By Chermaine Lee

In this undated photo, a turret from an old tank set in the ground as a part of war fortifications in front of a lighthouse near Yuzhno-Kurilsk on Kunashiri Island, one of the Kuril Chain, known as the Northern Territories in Japan.

SAPPORO, JAPAN —

Friction between Japan and Russia will likely escalate amidst the burgeoning Ukraine war, with the decades-long land conflicts showing no sign of thawing.

The Kremlin recently banned non-Russian vessels from waters near the Kuril Islands – known in Japan as the Northern Territories – currently occupied by Russia but claimed by Japan.

Tokyo saw the move as part of a series of Moscow threats after the recent security alliance between the United States and Japan.

There will be further retaliation from Moscow against Japan, according to James DJ Brown, professor of political science at Japan’s Temple University.

“The Putin regime feels an obligation to retaliate against what it regards as unfriendly actions by Japan,” Brown told VOA News. “Every time Tokyo does something more to assist Ukraine or to strengthen military ties with the United States, Moscow takes some measures to punish Japan.”

He said that as Japan is likely to introduce further sanctions to support Kyiv, Moscow’s retaliation is “all but guaranteed.”

The retaliatory measures aren’t just targeting Tokyo. A Russian man residing in the Kuril Islands was warned in March by a Russian court over his remarks to Japanese media that the territory had belonged to Japan in the past.

Earlier this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would visit the Kuril Islands, putting a damper on hopes for negotiations over sovereignty that both countries have attempted for decades.

Kuril Islands

Land disputes run deep

Russia and Japan’s competing claims over the four islands off the northeast coast of Hokkaido – Japan's second-largest island – date back to at least the 19th century. Near the end of WWII, the then Soviet Union started fully occupying the Kuril Islands.

Japan claimed that the Soviet Union incorporated them “without any legal grounds” and refused to sign a peace treaty. Tokyo said about 17,000 Japanese residents were deported from the islands. The Russian public, Brown said, view the Kuril Islands as reward for the sacrifices of the Soviet people during the war.

The two countries have held talks off and on for decades to reach an agreement but to no avail.

The conflict eased in 2016, when the two countries agreed on joint economic activities including tourism projects on the islands, as well as visa-free visits for Japanese citizens.

Two years later, former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proposed a split of the four islands, returning two islands to Japan, but Putin rejected it. Akihiro Iwashita, professor of the Slavic-Eurasian Research Center at Japan’s Hokkaido University, called this Putin’s “failed diplomacy” toward Japan that eventually led to Tokyo taking a more hardline approach against Moscow.

“If Putin had shown goodwill to Japan, negotiating with Shinzo Abe for the peace treaty, Japan would not have taken a critical position over the Ukraine war,” Iwashita told VOA News. “Remember Japan’s hesitation to sanction Russia after its 2014 aggression against Ukraine? Japan now does not need to restrain its policy towards Russia.”

Tensions over the Ukraine war

Soon after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow put all peace treaty talks with Japan on hold and suspended the previously agreed economic activities and visa-free visits to the islands for Japanese citizens. This followed Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s siding with Ukraine in the war, with Kishida calling the suspension “extremely unjust.”

Japan has been providing assistance to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, including supplying Patriot air defense systems last year. Kishida was the first Japanese leader to visit an active war zone, to show solidarity with Ukraine and the U.S.

Moscow warned of “grave consequences” for its ties with Tokyo. That did not stop Japan from pledging $4.5 billion in aid to war-torn Ukraine last December, including $1 billion for humanitarian purposes.

Japan’s aid to Ukraine has affected residents of Hokkaido. A survey conducted by Hokkaido authorities and the Hokkaido Shimbun last year showed that over half of the respondents near the Russia-Japan border in the north felt a negative effect of the Ukraine war on local life, including reduction in fishing activities and trade, and human contacts.

In October last year, Russia banned all seafood imports from Japan, citing Tokyo’s release of wastewater from the Fukushima nuclear plant.

“Moscow used the pretense of the threat of radiation from treatment water from the Fukushima plant. In reality, it was an attempt by Moscow to punish Japan for its support for Ukraine,” Brown said.

In the survey, many also said they cannot foresee a solution for the northern territories, but a majority said they support Tokyo’s policy against Russia.

Both experts said Russia does not currently pose a military threat to Japan. Brown said, “the Russian military is present on the disputed islands, but their role is to defend the Sea of Okhotsk, which is important as a bastion for Russian nuclear submarines. It does not have the capabilities on the islands to launch an amphibious assault on Hokkaido.”

Peace treaty negotiations are expected to continue to be frozen for the foreseeable future, despite Kishida’s calls for their resumption in February this year.

“Kishida is displaying diplomatic goodwill towards Russia, but with no expectations of it being reciprocated…There is little room to fill the interest gap between the two,” said Iwashita.

He added that Russia’s pressure on Japan “will not lead to any results.”

 

Nuclear site licence issued for UK's Sizewell C site

07 May 2024

The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) has granted a nuclear site licence for the Sizewell C site in eastern England, where the plan is to replicate the Hinkley Point C model of a nuclear power plant featuring two EPRs.

(Image: Sizewell C Ltd)

The licence application was initially submitted in 2020, and despite it having met "almost all" regulatory requirements, two issues prevented the granting of a licence in 2022 - relating to the shareholders' agreement and the ownership of the land at the site. The ONR said at that time it would carry out a "proportionate reassessment" once those two issues had been "resolved to its satisfaction". It has now done so and recommended the granting of the nuclear site licence.

The issuing of the licence is a significant step in the long-running Sizewell C process, but it does not permit the start of nuclear-related construction at the site - instead it formalises ONR's regulatory responsibility and allows it to require project company Sizewell C Ltd to request permission for the start of nuclear-related construction.

It is the first site licence issued by the ONR since the one issued for Hinkley Point C in 2012 and it means that Sizewell C has a legal responsibility to comply with health and safety and nuclear security regulations and needs the project to meet 36 conditions attached to the licence covering the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of the plant.

ONR CEO Mark Foy said: "I am pleased to confirm that following extensive engagement and review by the ONR team, our assessment of the Sizewell C application is complete and a nuclear site licence has been granted. The licensing process is fundamental in confirming that operators of a nuclear site are ready and able to meet their obligations under the nuclear site licence, to protect their workforce and the public.

"The granting of this licence is one step in ONR's process, allowing us to provide greater regulatory oversight, advice and challenge to the licensee as they progress their plans. We will continue working with Sizewell C to ensure that the highest levels of safety and security are met."

Sizewell C director of safety, security and assurance, Mina Golshan, said: "Securing a nuclear site licence is a show of confidence from our nuclear regulator that we have a suitable site, that we can achieve a safe design replicated from Hinkley Point C, and that we have a capable organisation ready to begin major construction work. It’s a huge milestone and demonstrates that this project is firmly on track."

The EDF-led plan is for Sizewell C to feature two EPRs producing 3.2 GW of electricity, enough to power the equivalent of around six million homes for at least 60 years. It would be a similar design to the two-unit plant being built at Hinkley Point C in Somerset, with the aim of building it more quickly and at lower cost as a result of the experience gained from what is the first new nuclear construction project in the UK for about three decades.

EDF agreed in October 2016 with China General Nuclear (CGN) to develop the Sizewell C project to the point where a final investment decision could be made. EDF had an 80% stake and CGN a 20% stake. However, the so-called "golden era" of UK-China relations has ended in recent years with the UK government citing security concerns as it reviewed and blocked Chinese investments in UK infrastructure. In November 2022, the UK said it would invest GBP679 million (USD845 million) and become a 50% partner with EDF in the Sizewell C project. A further GBP511 million of funding was made available to the project in summer 2023, with the government funding designed to get the project to the final investment decision. EDF said in November 2022 that it planned to "retain only a minority stake in the final investment decision - a maximum of 20%".

The UK government has been seeking investment in the Sizewell C project, launching a pre-qualification for potential investors as the first stage of an equity raise process last September. It has also taken legislation through Parliament allowing a new way of funding new large infrastructure projects - a Regulated Asset Base (RAB) funding model, which can see consumers contributing towards the cost of new nuclear power plants during the construction phase. Under the previous Contracts for Difference system developers finance the construction of a nuclear project and only begin receiving revenue when the station starts generating electricity.

In January, a further GBP1.3 billion of government funding was approved allowing for necessary infrastructure work such as roads and rail lines to continue pending a final investment decision being taken. In March Sizewell C Ltd, a standalone company majority-owned by the UK government, signed a deal with EDF Energy to purchase the freehold of the land which will be used for the new power plant.

Minister for Nuclear and Renewables Andrew Bowie said: "Sizewell C will be the cornerstone of the UK's clean energy transition, supplying six million homes with green energy for decades. Obtaining a nuclear site licence is a significant achievement and should instil further confidence from investors - bringing us another step closer towards reaching a final investment decision this year."

Sizewell C Ltd said that earthworks are under way at the site, that the process of raising private equity from investors "continues to make good progress" and "the project is anticipating taking a Final Investment Decision in the coming months".

WEC panelists welcome growth in support for nuclear power

07 May 2024

The public and political perception of nuclear energy has significantly improved over the past few years, speakers agreed in a panel session during the recent World Energy Congress 2024.

The panel session (Image: WNN)

"The fact that we're having this panel here at WEC is really a testament to the growing interest in nuclear," session moderator John Gorman, president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, noted in his introduction. The session - titled Leap of scale or faith: Realising the full potential of nuclear - was held on 24 April during the congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said that although some people refer to a nuclear 'renaissance', he prefers to think of it as "a return to realism".

"We are seeing this realisation that ... ensuring the means to grow and to power our economies ... it would be very difficult, if not simply impossible, to get to that place without nuclear," he said. Grossi said there was a "common understanding" when it comes to energy and the transition to cleaner energy systems - "nuclear has a place. It always had it. We always knew it, but for quite a long time it was challenged, it was contested". He continued: "We have a global consensus that [nuclear] should be accelerated side-by-side with renewables, side-by-side with fossils."

People are now realising that nuclear energy does not emit greenhouse gases and is necessary, along with renewable energies, to reach the target of reaching net-zero by 2050, Laurence Piketty, deputy general administrator of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) said. She said France's fleet of 56 power reactors - which provide about 70% of the country's electricity - had helped France maintain electricity prices at a "fair level compared with other European countries" during the energy crisis that began in 2022.

Piketty highlighted the 12-member Nuclear Alliance that is calling on the European Commission to recognise nuclear energy in the EU's energy strategy and relevant policies. "I see the excitement around this European alliance as a clear change in the public perception and European perception of nuclear and an increasing acceptance of it, even in countries where nuclear energy was banned for many years," she said.

Referring to the first Nuclear Energy Summit, held in Brussels in March this year, Grossi said some leaders "very candidly said, 'We have changed. Things have changed. And the reality has changed'. And the people out there are saying it even in countries phasing out nuclear - when you go and ask people on the street they would like to have nuclear."

Grossi said there was a generational change in public opinion about nuclear energy. "Young people are very favourable in general to nuclear," he said. "And what we see is that those having expressed more doubts perhaps belong more to my generation than the new generations that are not carrying this package of doubts and sometimes ideological issues." He added: "We have to address problems squarely, including those having to do with opposition, societal doubt. And in this I think there has been a real change."

Naomi Hirose, vice chair of the World Energy Council and chairman of the Japan Energy Association, said that public opinion about nuclear energy in Japan had been "very, very negative" in the years following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. "But I was very much surprised to see [the results of] a public opinion poll which took place a year and a half ago, the end of 2022," the former CEO of Tokyo Electric Power Company said.

"The question was whether nuclear power plants that have passed safety review from the Nuclear Regulatory Authority should be restarted, 58% of the respondents said they should be restarted. I was honestly very surprised because this same question had been asked many times over the years after the accident and the average positive answer is something like 20-25%. But it suddenly changed up to 58%. This is the public reacting to energy security. It was brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and people are very much scared about the safe, stable supply of electricity in Japan. And the price of electric power jumped up. That's why the people changed [their opinion] dramatically."

"The young generation is so important and in much of the world we see that the young generation is actually pushing for the adoption of nuclear," Gorman said.

Piketty said that nuclear energy was now widely recognised as a valuable source of low-carbon, stable, long-lasting, predictable energy that will enable countries to decarbonise in the long-term. "But, with the electrification of many sectors in the world, starting with mobility, nuclear energy needs to show its potential and its capacity to match this ... we have to take up several challenges. We must develop and deploy a new generation of reactors (including SMRs) in a timely manner."

"We are at the moment, unfortunately, in the international scene seeing conflict, we see tension," said Grossi. "And we see problems. It's not the first time - history is not linear. But when it comes to nuclear, there is a lot of convergence. There is a perception and a conviction that there are many things in which we can cooperate and we see that this pattern is a reflection of that.

"There are still challenges ahead of us and nothing is guaranteed, because if we fail to address and to give the right answers to some of the issues perhaps preventing nuclear to flourish in the way we want, we will still have nuclear, but we will not have the nuclear we need. And this is the gap. We know that nuclear is going to continue, but we also know that we need more nuclear. Are we going to get it, yes or no? This is the question."

Researched and written by World Nuclear News