China is Building 2 Molten Salt Thorium Reactors

The cash is to develop two “molten salt” reactors in the Gobi Desert in northern China. 

Researchers hope that if they can solve a number of technical problems the reactors will lead to a range of applications, including nuclear-powered warships and drones.

The technology, in theory, can create more heat and power than existing forms of nuclear reactors that use uranium, while producing only one thousandth of the radioactive waste. 

It also has the advantage for China of using thorium as its main fuel. China has some of the world’s largest reserves of the metal.

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Russia's Navy Claims to be Working on a Nuclear Powered "Destroyer"

The Project 23560 Leader-class destroyer will replace several warship types at once in the Russian Navy’s inventory, including guided missile cruisers and large antisubmarine warfare (ASW) ships. The Severnoye Design Bureau has started working on her engineering design, according to the Izvestia daily.

The ship will displace about 17,500 tons, which will make her close enough to Project 1144 Orlan-class (NATO reporting name: Kirov-class) heavy missile cruisers in terms of dimensions. According to former Russian Navy Deputy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Igor Kasatonov, the development of a ship like that implies certain geopolitical interests of Russia’s leadership. Metal will be cut for the new warship after 2018, according to the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC). In all, a series of eight destroyers is planned.

Nuclear-powered cruisers have the self-sustained operating capability and formidable weaponry and can operate anywhere in the world. The Russian Navy has not ordered ships like that since 1989. Hence, the development means that the country has regained geopolitical interests in remote corners of the world now, Kasatonov noted.

Valery Polovinkin, advisor to the director general of the Krylov State Research Center that worked out the destroyer’s preliminary design, says the sophisticated ship will combine the best of several types of surface combatants at once. She will have antimissile and space defense capabilities and serve as a kind of strong point in the ocean.

The Leader will be a versatile ship triple-hatted as destroyer, large ASW ship and guided missile cruiser while being smaller than Project 1144 ships and carrying far more weaponry. The self-contained operation capability of similar ships is usually based on their stock of provisions, and their nuclear propulsion plants can do without refueling for years.

The advanced destroyer will be equipped with the RITM-200 nuclear power plant fitting the future Project 22220 icebreaker, which lead ship, the Arktika, was launched in June. The Leader’s power plant will propel her to 30 knots.

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The Soviet Pompeii

“MY MOTHERLAND is the Soviet Union,” reads a sentence written in cursive script in one of the exercise books scattered on the floor of an abandoned school in Pripyat, a Soviet-era ghost town in Ukraine next to the Chernobyl nuclear plant. The town, built for the plant’s workers and their families, was evacuated on the afternoon of April 27th 1986, some 36 hours after the worst nuclear-power disaster in history. Today Pripyat is being reclaimed by nature and tourists. What were once streets have become forest paths. Concrete blocks of flats decorated with Soviet symbols and slogans are barely visible through the trees.

Some 200 pensioners eventually returned to villages in the area, but Pripyat itself remains dead, a Soviet Pompeii. Tourists and journalists stroll past rusting propaganda stands, taking photographs of scattered gas masks, clothes, toys and textbooks in abandoned schoolrooms. Some may have been positioned there deliberately by tour organisers.

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Mini Nuclear Reactors Might be the key to Overcoming Nuclear Energy Financing Problems

Mini-versions of current-generation nuclear reactors could be the solution for the industry's problems in finding financing for new atomic power stations, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said on Wednesday.

The construction of new reactors in developed countries has virtually ground to a halt in recent years due to safety fears following the 2011 Fukushima disaster and because nuclear projects struggle to find financing as they compete with cheaper natural gas and renewable energy.

China is building dozens of reactors at home, and Russia has won nuclear contracts in developing nations with offers of cheap export credits, but in the United States and Europe, nuclear projects can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

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The Antineutrino Detection may Have Profound Implications for the US Navy

The historic agreement between Iran and six world powers to curb the former’s nuclear development, concluded over the summer and expected to be adopted this month, relies heavily on verification. The foreign powers are keen to make sure that Tehran doesn’t acquire enough plutonium or uranium to build a nuclear weapon, and Tehran wants to demonstrate good behavior in order to get sanctions relief. That raises questions about the imperfect verification methods used by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), the organization charged with the task under the Iranian nuclear deal, and the International Monitoring System (IMS), a global network that detects nuclear explosions worldwide. Are they reliable enough? Some would argue no.

There may be, though, a new option for verification on the not-too-distant horizon. Antineutrino detection is an existing technology that, if political and diplomatic hurdles are overcome, could be put in place before the 10-year ban on Iranian enrichment R&D is lifted. And fully developed over the long-term, it holds great promise for monitoring similar deals in the future, and for reinforcing nuclear non-proliferation worldwide. Difficult to evade, antineutrino detection technology could allow the international community to reliably monitor a country’s nuclear activities in real-time, potentially without setting foot in the country. Similar in cost and technological scale to the space-borne reconnaissance methods governments use for detection today, antineutrino detection could not only help identify undeclared nuclear reactors, but could monitor nuclear facilities and detonations throughout the Middle East and beyond. More research and development could make this technology a viable nonproliferation verification option.

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While I am not worried about the chance of a carrier battle group being spotting since stealth is NOT what it does nor is it wise to do for it, but rather for the ballistic missile and attack subs.  The sensitivity of this technology may make it possible to track the subs while submerged.  It depends on the shielding potential of water for the antineutrinos.  I suspect it won't be any better than an underground facility and if so, oh boy...that's a sucker punch.  Its a down right game changer.  Even if underground and subs are safe, mobile nuclear weapons would be perfectly detectable.  Putin's nukes on a train are beyond useless.

China Claims to be Working on Combined Fission/Fusion Reactor

China will build a new hybrid reactor that can burn nuclear waste via a combined fusion-fission method by 2030.

This could give a potentially dramatic boost to China's attempt to switch to more environmentally friendly energy production methods, by recycling the waste produced by traditional nuclear plants into more electricity.

Traditional nuclear power plants produce large amounts of waste, the primary component in which is uranium-238, which cannot be used by current fissile-based reactors. The proposed hybrid reactor will use nuclear fusion to burn u-238 and could in theory recycle the waste from traditional reactors into new fuel.

The project is being developed at the Chinese Academy of Engineering Physics in Sichuan, a top secret military research facility where China's nuclear weapons are developed.

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Ukraine Arranges for Purchase of American Nuclear Fuel, Angers Russia

Russia says Ukraine's deal to buy U.S.-made nuclear fuel for its Soviet-built reactors could trigger a nuclear accident.

Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk of Ukraine announced Tuesday that his nation has reached a deal on nuclear fuel deliveries with Westinghouse to reduce dependence on Russian supplies.

Russia's Foreign Ministry deplored the move as a "dangerous experiment that threatens safety and health of the Ukrainian citizens and peoples of Europe." It said nuclear fuel produced by the U.S. company doesn't quite fit Soviet-built nuclear reactors that Ukraine has.

The ministry said Ukrainian authorities must take a responsible approach to nuclear safety, or risk disasters such as the 1986 Chernobyl one, which was a result of a flawed Soviet reactor design coupled with serious mistakes made by the plant operators.

In a statement Tuesday, Westinghouse said it "has been working in the Ukrainian market since 2003, and brings diversification of suppliers, global best practices and technology to the Ukraine market. Westinghouse fuel is currently operating safely and efficiently at the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant without any defects in performance."

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India Considering Nuclear Powered Aircraft Carrier as Follow-on to INS Vikrant

India is considering powering its second domestically built aircraft carrier with a nuclear propulsion plant, according to a Tuesday report by news agency Press Trust of India.

The design of the carrier is ongoing and nuclear power is still an option for the carrier, said Director General of Naval Design Bureau, Rear Admiral Atul Saxena, in response to questions from reporters.

India’s first domestically built carrier — the 40,000-ton INS Vikrant currently under construction in Cochin Shipyard in Southern India — will be powered by four General Electric LM-2500 gas turbines.

The second carrier Vishal is planned to be much larger — up to 65,000-tons — and is still in the conceptual design process, Saxena said.

Last year Indian officials said the two major decisions for the carrier were its power supply and launching and recovery methods for the planned Vishnal.

Though more technically complicated in design and construction stages, a nuclear powered carrier provides greater flexibility to commanders once in operation, Eric Wertheim, author of the Naval Institute’s Combat Fleets of the World, told USNI News on Wednesday.

“Nuclear power frees up space,” he said.
“You don’t have to store fuel for your ship onboard.”

Nuclear carriers have more room for ammunition and fuel for aircraft on the ship and shedding the requirement for refueling the ship simplify the logistics of resupplying the carrier at sea.

However, it’s unclear if India can overcome the technical requirements to fielding a nuclear carrier.

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Japan Just Made China Nervous: Didn't Report 640 kg of Plutonium to IAEA

Japan failed to include 640 kg of unused plutonium in its annual reports to the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2012 and 2013, in what experts are terming an “inappropriate omission.”

The stock is part of mixed plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX) fuel stored in a reactor that was offline during this period, and was thus deemed exempt from IAEA reporting requirements, said an official at the Japan Atomic Energy Commission.

Experts warn that Japan’s reporting does not reflect the actual state of unused plutonium that could be diverted for nuclear weapons. The unreported amount is enough to make about 80 nuclear bombs.

The official said, “There is also no problem in terms of security against nuclear terrorism.”

“From the safeguards point of view, this material is still unirradiated fresh MOX fuel regardless of its location,” former IAEA Deputy Director General Olli Heinonen said. “If it has indeed not been irradiated, this should be reflected in the statements.”

In March 2011, the MOX fuel was loaded into the No. 3 reactor of Kyushu Electric Power Co.’s Genkai nuclear plant in Saga Prefecture during a regular checkup. It was removed two years later because the reactor has remained idled since the Fukushima nuclear crisis.

When Japan reported to the IAEA in 2012 that it had 1.6 tons of unused plutonium at reactors nationwide as of the end of 2011, down from 2.2 tons the previous year, it excluded the 640 kg. The amount reported a year later remained at 1.6 tons.

The fuel has been kept unused in a fuel pool since March 2013.

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Is This a Model of China's First Nuclear Aircraft Carrier?

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Iran Nuclear Talks Headed off a Cliff?

It is now clear that differences in negotiations between Iran and six major powers led by the United States remain intractable, despite the conciliatory words and much friendlier atmosphere which have reigned in recent months. When the two sides met in Vienna last week for a first round of hard-core haggling after months of laying out their positions, it was as if they had run into a wall. Instead of confidently saying an agreement over Iran’s nuclear ambitions could be reached by the July 20 deadline, officials were now talking of “significant gaps” in their positions. It is “not about being optimistic or not optimistic. It is about being realistic,” a senior US official said.

The official said the six nations negotiating with Iran – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany – now were “worried about the short time left” until the deadline, the US official said. “In any negotiations you have good days and bad days,” the official said. The Wednesday to Friday meeting in the Austrian capital was clearly among the bad ones. “We need to see some tough decisions being made … more than we’ve seen thus far,” the US official said, referring to such matters as the number of centrifuges Iran will get to keep. Iranian negotiators meanwhile were talking about the deadline possibly being extended six months until next January but the American said the six nations still had a “sense of urgency” about reaching an agreement in July.

There are to be more senior-level talks in June; experts from the two sides are consulting on a full-time basis. Talks are expected to become non-stop as the July 20 deadline nears. The bottom line is that the fundamental divide which has existed since the beginning of the Iranian nuclear crisis in 2002, when secret Iranian nuclear work was first revealed, has not diminished. The devil may be in the details in the talks but the details reflect ways of thinking about nuclear goals and needs. Compromising on issues such as centrifuges, which refine uranium into either reactor fuel of bomb material, are as political as they are technical and therein lies the rub. Here is a look at what the main issues are going forward:

Centrifuges

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Is This the Outline of the Iranian Nuclear Deal?

The outlines of a possible nuclear deal with Iran are now clear. What isn’t clear is whether Iran will actually agree to the terms of them by the six major powers – the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France.

When the talks open in Vienna tomorrow both sides will be “laying out their positions and trying to better understand where each of us are on the various issues,” a senior US administration official said in background comments ahead of the talks. “This process has been helpful in setting the table … to use the March and April rounds to go over every single issue that we believed had to be addressed in a comprehensive agreement and make sure we understood each other on those issues.” The goal is to begin “drafting in May,” the official said. Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif gave much the same timetable when he arrived in Vienna for the talks, according to reports.

The six-month agreement on which the clock started ticking January 20 and for which talks on a comprehensive agreement began in February calls for a deal to be struck by July, although this could be extended for another six months if more time is needed.

Here’s the outline of a likely agreement, as well as the differences which divide Iran from the international community and which could torpedo an agreement. Iran is expected to be able to keep on enriching uranium but the question is how many centrifuges it will be able to keep turning and how much enriched uranium, which can be fuel for civilian reactors or bomb material, it will be able to stockpile. Right now Iran has some 19,000 centrifuges installed and about 8,000 kilograms of low-enriched uranium stockpiled, enough for several bombs. Experts believe Iran would have to reduce the number of centrifuges to 4,000 and the stockpile to almost nil — since it does not have a power reactor it needs to fuel at this point — in order to reduce the ability to “break-out”, that is rush to making enough fissile material for a bomb. Iran however has spoken of not dismantling its program and merely allowing for tighter monitoring.

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Nuclear Regulatory Commission Restarts Yucca Mountain Application Review

"We direct the NRC Staff to complete and issue the Safety Evaluation Report (SER) associated with the construction authorization application.” So states the Memorandum and Order issued by the commissioners of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in compliance with an August decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals to restart the review of the Yucca Mountain high-level radioactive waste repository.

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Last Shipment of the Megatons for Megawatts Agreement has Shipped

A 20-year-old deal that has powered American homes while reducing the risk of Russian nuclear material falling into the wrong hands approached its end on Thursday when the final shipment of uranium left St Petersburg for Baltimore.

Under the 1993 HEU Purchase Agreement, Russia downblended 500 metric tons of highly enriched uranium (HEU) from nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium and sent it to the United States, where it was made into fuel for nuclear power plants.

Over much of the life of the deal, it was used to generate roughly half of all commercial nuclear energy produced in the United States, or nearly 10 percent of all U.S. electricity, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

"For two decades, one in 10 light bulbs in America has been powered by nuclear material from Russian nuclear warheads," Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said of the agreement, commonly known as Megatons for Megawatts.

It provided cash and jobs in Russia's nuclear industry at a time, after the 1991 Soviet collapse, when fears ran high that impoverished scientists would sell secrets or "dirty bomb" ingredients.

It was "crucial for stabilizing the Russian nuclear complex at a critical time in the 1990s," said Matthew Bunn, a Harvard University professor and expert on nuclear security and proliferation.

He called it "perhaps the most successful U.S.-Russian cooperative effort to reduce nuclear dangers".

But times have changed. A richer Russia, while seeking to expand its nuclear energy industry, has resisted U.S. efforts to extend the agreement or come up with another one to continue blending down HEU, Bunn said.

The deal was done when Russia wanted financial aid from the West. President Vladimir Putin, in power since 2000, has made a point of rejecting handouts and demanded that the United States treat Russia as an equal.

"It is too bad ... that Russia has not decided to blend down substantial additional quantities of highly enriched uranium," Bunn said. "They still have far more than is plausibly needed for their military programs."

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Probably Like Moller's Flying Cars: Thorium Powered Car

A US company says it will have a nuclear-powered prototype vehicle on the road within two years.

Laser Power Systems from Connecticut is developing a method of propulsion that uses thorium to produce electricity to power a car engine.

Thorium is an element similar to uranium and because it is such a dense material it has the potential to produce massive amounts of heat.

According to Laser Power Systems CEO, Charles Stevens, just one gram of thorium produces more energy than 28,000 litres of petrol. Mr Stevens says just eight grams of thorium would be enough to power a vehicle for its entire life.

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Take a look at their website.  Not terribly encouraging.

I have a hard time believing the DMVs and NTSB are going to be giving this a thumbs up.  Esp in California.  I can imagine Berkeley banning the car outright.  Even though its just 8 grams.  You ought to see the heart attack they have over our tritium work on the Hill.

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors for the Clinch River, Tennessee

Near the banks of the Clinch River in eastern Tennessee, a team of engineers will begin a dig this month that they hope will lead to a new energy future.

They'll be drilling core samples, documenting geologic, hydrologic, and seismic conditions—the initial step in plans to site the world's first commercial small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) here.

Once before, there was an effort to hatch a nuclear power breakthrough along the Clinch River, which happens to meander through the U.S. government's largest science and technology campus, Oak Ridge, on its path from the Appalachian Mountains to the Tennessee River.

In the 1970s, the U.S. government and private industry partners sought to build the nation's first commercial-scale "fast breeder" reactor here, an effort abandoned amid concerns about costs and safety. Today, nuclear energy's future still hinges on the same two issues, and advocates argue that SMRs provide the best hope of delivering new nuclear plants that are both affordable and protective of people and the environment. And even amid Washington, D.C.'s budget angst, there was bipartisan support for a new five-year $452 million U.S. government program to spur the technology.

Happening in 15 Minutes: Orion Rises Again

To Mars in Weeks by Thermonuclear Micro-Bomb Propulsion

Friedwardt Winterberg

Tuesday, April 2, 2013 2:00 P.M. in the H.J.E. Reid Auditorium

Abstract:

To reduce the radiation hazard for manned missions to Mars and beyond, a high specific impulse-high thrust system is needed, with a nuclear bomb propulsion system the preferred candidate. Propulsion with small fission bombs is excluded because the critical mass requirement leads to extravagant small fission burn up rates. This leaves open the propulsion with non-fission ignited thermonuclear micro-explosions, with a compact fusion micro-explosion igniter (driver), and no large radiator. It should not depend on the rare He3 isotope, and only require a small amount of tritium. This excluded lasers for ignition. With multi-mega-ampere-gigavolt proton beams and a small amount of tritium, cylindrical deuterium targets can be ignited. The proton beams are generated by discharging the entire spacecraft as a magnetically insulated gigavolt capacitor. To avoid a large radiator, needed to remove the heat from the absorption of fast neutrons in the spacecraft, the micro-explosion is surrounded by a thick layer of liquid hydrogen, stopping the neutrons and heating the hydrogen to ~105 K, which as a fully ionized plasma can be repelled from the spacecraft by a magnetic mirror.

Wish there was a live feed online...

DOE Lashes Out at ITER Management

A US government official has lashed out at what he sees as the mismanagement of ITER—a multibillion dollar project to prove that controlled thermonuclear fusion can work.

Speaking at a Department of Energy (DOE) advisory committee meeting, William Brinkman, the director of the DOE's office of science, told fusion researchers that he wanted to see the entire project's management reformed. The international organisation responsible for ITER is too weak, Brinkman believes (and, incidentally, so do we).

"If I could get my hands on the person who proposed the current management structure I would strangle him," Brinkman told the assembled scientists, according to Fusion Program Notes, which covers all things fusion.

He also confirmed that ITER now appeared set for a 2019 start date—ten months later than planned. We previously reported the proposed 2019 start date in a story about Europe's efforts to reform management of its portion of the ITER project.

Already 10 months behind schedule. Are we seeing another NIF situation?

NIF's AWAY! A Step to the Fusion Drive

Using the most powerful laser system ever built, scientists have brought us one step closer to nuclear fusion power, a new study says.

The same process that powers our sun and other stars, nuclear fusion has the potential to be an efficient, carbon-free energy source—with none of the radioactive waste associated with the nuclear fission method used in current nuclear plants.

Thanks to the new achievement, a prototype nuclear fusion power plant could be operating within a decade, speculated study leader Siegfried Glenzer, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Glenzer and colleagues used the world's largest laser array—the Livermore lab's National Ignition Facility—to heat a BB-size fuel pellet to millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

"These lasers are pulsed, and for a very short amount of time"—one ten-billionth of a second—"the power they produce is more than all the power generated by the entire electrical grid of the United States" at any given moment, Glenzer said.

The test confirmed that a technique called inertial fusion ignition could be used to trigger nuclear fusion—the merging of the nuclei of two atoms of, say, hydrogen—which can result in a tremendous amount of excess energy. Nuclear fission, by contrast, involves the splitting of atoms.

The laser demonstration means scientists are now much closer to triggering nuclear fusion in a controlled setting—something that's never been done before and which is necessary if fusion is to be harnessed for energy.

Wow. This is really kewl and damned depressing at the same time. A bit of background is available here.

depressing first. The NIF has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over budget. It's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind schedule. In fact, if not for Shrub, I suspect it would have been canceled even with its supposed place in our testing regime. I know a nontrivial number of physicists, including those in the fusion program, that are annoyed with this: it sucks down money, they feel, is better spent elsewhere.

The damned kewl part is that we'er a step closer to inertial confinement fusion. While probably not the best way to produce power unlike the MHD fusion. However, it is INFINITELY closer to what we need for fusion drives in space. Now, assembling this is space is going to be a stone cold...monster...but once you have, you can get some impressive results for propulsion.

Potential irony here: we could get fusion drives long, long before we get fusion reactors.

Oh, note, maybe there's a reason to get that lunar He3 after all, James.

Yucca Mountain Project to be Shuttered?

For two decades, a ridge of volcanic rock 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas known as Yucca Mountain has been the sole focus of government plans to store highly radioactive nuclear waste.

Not anymore.

Despite the $13.5 billion that has been spent on the project, the Obama administration says it's going in a different direction.

It slashed funding for Yucca Mountain in its recently announced budget.

And on Thursday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu told a Senate hearing that the Yucca Mountain site no longer was viewed as an option for storing reactor waste, brushing aside criticism from several Republican lawmakers.

Instead, Chu said the Obama administration believes the nearly 60,000 tons of used reactor fuel can remain at nuclear power plants while a new, comprehensive plan for waste disposal is developed.

[...]

Obama's 2010 budget calls for scrapping all spending on Yucca Mountain except for what is needed to answer questions from the NRC on the license application "while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal."

*sighs*

Now I'm torn here.

There have been some less than reassuring bits coming out of the Yucca Mountain Project. There are a few geology 'hmmms.' However, some of that is equivocal.

On the other hand, this is a case of without this, the nuke industry restart will stall at best. Nuclear waste needs a long term solution. In 4, 8 years we're not likely to have a replacement for burying it, unless Dr Chu has an ace up his sleeve. (which I doubt) Since this is one of the known technology ways we can fight global warming, it's rather depressing that Obama has decided to go this route.

Someone's gonna get 'screwed.' NM has already taken in the WIPP. NV, being one of the least populated and uninhabitable states, needs to pony up.

However, my irritation and depression from this decision aside: Senator McCain, knock-off the "Mr Chu" bit. While Chu doesn't have PhD-itis, if you want to be formal with him, the man's damn well earned his doctorate and a Nobel Prize. Some modicum of respect is required and has been freakin earned. Dr Chu it ought to be. Or should we start referring to you as 'Mr McCain' from now on?