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avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library

Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Library

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Library

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Library

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

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avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Library

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Library

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Library

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Media Statement NIRS/IEER: Radiation and Gender: One Basis for New Nuclear Weapons Treaty

Library

Media Statement NIRS/IEER: Radiation and Gender: One Basis for New Nuclear Weapons Treaty

May 25, 2017, Takoma Park, Maryland: This week, an historic nuclear weapons ban proposal was unveiled at the United Nations. The proposed agreement recognizes, for the first time, that nuclear weapons and radiation put women and girls at greater risk than men and boys.

No Nuke

Library

Industry Meltdown: Is the Era of Nuclear Power Coming to an End?

Is the nuclear power industry in its death throes? Even some nuclear enthusiasts believe so. With the exception of China, most nations are moving away from nuclear — existing power plants across the United States are being shut early; new reactor designs are falling foul of regulators, and public support remains in free fall. Now come the bankruptcies.

Library

Discours de Taro Yamamoto « Retournez, habitez, vivez, reconstruisez, c’est quoi cette histoire ! »

Taro YAMAMOTO, du parti libéral, est membre de la Chambre des conseillers. Il est un des rares membres parlementaires qui défendent les droits des victimes de l’accident de la centrale nucléaire de TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi. L’association Nos Voisins Lointains 3-11 a traduit les questions de Taro YAMAMOTO à la Commission spéciale de reconstruction de la Chambre des députés au 18 novembre 2016*. Le contenu de ses questions révèle la situation inhumaine à laquelle sont confrontées les victimes dans le cadre de la politique de retour du gouvernement japonais.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Bibliothèque


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Bibliothèque

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Bibliothèque

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Bibliothèque

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Media Statement NIRS/IEER: Radiation and Gender: One Basis for New Nuclear Weapons Treaty

Library

Media Statement NIRS/IEER: Radiation and Gender: One Basis for New Nuclear Weapons Treaty

May 25, 2017, Takoma Park, Maryland: This week, an historic nuclear weapons ban proposal was unveiled at the United Nations. The proposed agreement recognizes, for the first time, that nuclear weapons and radiation put women and girls at greater risk than men and boys.

No Nuke

Library

Industry Meltdown: Is the Era of Nuclear Power Coming to an End?

Is the nuclear power industry in its death throes? Even some nuclear enthusiasts believe so. With the exception of China, most nations are moving away from nuclear — existing power plants across the United States are being shut early; new reactor designs are falling foul of regulators, and public support remains in free fall. Now come the bankruptcies.

Library

Discours de Taro Yamamoto « Retournez, habitez, vivez, reconstruisez, c’est quoi cette histoire ! »

Taro YAMAMOTO, du parti libéral, est membre de la Chambre des conseillers. Il est un des rares membres parlementaires qui défendent les droits des victimes de l’accident de la centrale nucléaire de TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi. L’association Nos Voisins Lointains 3-11 a traduit les questions de Taro YAMAMOTO à la Commission spéciale de reconstruction de la Chambre des députés au 18 novembre 2016*. Le contenu de ses questions révèle la situation inhumaine à laquelle sont confrontées les victimes dans le cadre de la politique de retour du gouvernement japonais.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Library

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Library

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Library

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Library

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Library

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Library

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Biblioteca


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Biblioteca

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Biblioteca

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Biblioteca

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Library


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Library

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Library

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Library

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

avril 30, 2017

MOX Fuel Disposal

Biblioteca


Background:

After the end of WWII, Japan was persuaded by the Allies to embrace nuclear power – partly as a way of expiating the horror of the Atomic Bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but mainly as a way of achieving energy independence. To avoid the necessity of purchasing fuels off-island, the Japanese were urged to embrace the nuclear reprocessing option. By routinely extracting plutonium and unfissioned uranium from irradiated nuclear fuel, they were informed, new fuel could be fabricated by blending the recovered plutonium with the unfissioned uranium.  This new plutonium-based fuel is called MOX – an acronym for Mixed Oxide fuel. As a result, Japan developed no plans for the long-term storage of irradiated nuclear fuel.  Spent fuel was to be regarded as an energy resource rather than as nuclear waste. And as it happens, spent MOX fuel contains even larger amounts of highly toxic radioactive substances than spent uranium fuel from conventional reactors.

The Fugen advanced converter reactor started up in 1978. It was the first reactor in the world to use a full MOX fuel core. It had 772 MOX fuel assemblies, the most for any reactor anywhere. It has received the title of a historic landmark from the American Nuclear Society. The Fugen reactor boiled ordinary water as in standard boiling water reactor (BWR) but used heavy water as a moderator as in a CANDU reactor. The Fugen reactor  was shut down permanently in 2005.

The Monju prototype fast breeder reactor (1994-2016) was designed to produce more plutonium as a byproduct than the plutonium it uses as a fuel. That’s why it’s called a “breeder”.  But for this breeding process to work, the fuel has to be much more “enriched” in fissile material.  It has to be nuclear-weapons-usable material, capable of sustaining a nuclear chain reaction using “fast neutrons”, without the use of any moderator. That’s why it’s called a “fast” breeder.  So, instead of using water as a.coolant (which inevitably slows down the fast neutrons) the Monju reactor uses liquid sodium (a liquid metal) as a coolant.  Needless to say, the liquid sodium becomes highly radioactive, just as the primary coolant of any recator is highly radioactive.

The Monju reactor has been inoperative for most of the time since it was first built. It last operated in 2010, and last year it was decided top decommission it.  The Japanese have no idea at present how to dispose of the spent fuel or the radioactiuve sodium from Monju. Radioactive sodium is yet another nuclear conundrum.

At Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Unit 3 (one of the reactors that suffered a complete core meltdown) was fuelled with a heterogenous core of uranium oxide fuel and plutonium-based mixed oxide fuel (about 6 percent of the fuel was MOX).  Unit 3 was the only one of the six reactiors at Fukushima-Daiichi that had MOX fuel in its core.

Gordon Edwards.

5 Powerful Films About Chernobyl Vídeo do primeiro Fórum Social Temático Antinuclear em Tóquio

Related Posts

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Biblioteca

Hinkley Point: the ‘dreadful deal’ behind the world’s most expensive power plant

Building Britain’s first new nuclear reactor since 1995 will cost twice as much as the 2012 Olympics – and by the time it is finished, nuclear power could be a thing of the past. How could the government strike such a bad deal? By Holly Watt

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Biblioteca

Background on the LNT (linear no-threshold) radiation model

Because of the importance of the debate that continues to rage over the harmful effects of low-level radioactivity, I am sending out a copy of my recent exchanges on this topic in the context of the Canadian Pugwash Group. As you know, nuclear proponents have been for many years eagerly pushing the idea that there is a safe threshold of exposure and that exposures below this threshold are either completely harmless or actually beneficial. The latter claim is called “hormesis”.

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Biblioteca

Canada Port Hope Radioactive Repository

Before the discovery of nuclear fission in 1939, Port Hope was the home of a radium refinery. Radium is a radioactive heavy metal, a natural byproduct of uranium, that sold for $70,000 per gram in 1931 when the refinery was built. The radioactive ore came from Port Radium, a mine site located on the eastern shore of Great Bear Lake, in the traditional territory of the nomadic Sahtu-Dene people. Large volumes of radioactive waste were left over from the radium refining operation, and much of this waste was dumped into the Port Hope Harbor and into several deep ravines within the town’s boundaries, freely accessible to children and animals.

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