June, 21 2017, 04:00pm EDT
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Permanently Closed U.S. Nuclear Reactor Should Be "Autopsied"
Examination could identify potential safety flaws in operating reactors with parts from same controversial French forge
TAKOMA PARK, Md.
A permanently closed nuclear reactor in Florida that, documents show, likely has a manufactured weakness in a vital safety component produced by a controversial French forge that also supplied components to 17 still operating U.S. reactors, should be "autopsied," says Beyond Nuclear, a leading national anti-nuclear watchdog group.
The Crystal River Unit 3 reactor in Red Level, Florida, was permanently closed in 2013 and is in the decommissioning process. Research by Beyond Nuclear staff found that the Florida reactor likely shares an at-risk safety-related component manufactured at the French Le Creusot forge that is currently shut down and under international investigation for the loss of quality control of its manufacturing process and falsification of quality assurance documentation. The Crystal River reactor pressure vessel head was supplied by a factory at Chalon-Saint Marcel that assembles pieces forged at Le Creusot, both Areva-owned factories.
"The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission should seize upon this opportunity and 'autopsy' Crystal River 3," said Paul Gunter, Director of the Reactor Oversight Project at Beyond Nuclear. "A close examination of Crystal River could provide critical safety data to inform the decision-making on whether the seventeen U.S. reactors still operating with at-risk Le Creusot parts should also be materially tested," Gunter said.
The Le Creusot factory forges large ingots into safety-related components such as reactor pressure vessels, pressure vessel lids and steam generators.
The French industrial facility was discovered to be operating with lax quality control procedures that allowed the introduction of an excessive amount of carbon contamination into its manufacturing process, a problem technically known as "carbon segregation."
The excess carbon weakens the component's "fracture toughness" in the face of the reactor's extreme pressure and temperature. Failure of a weakened component during operation would initiate the loss of cooling to the reactor and a serious nuclear accident.
At-risk safety components potentially containing these flaws, and manufactured at the Creusot Forge, have been delivered to reactors in France, other countries and the United States over a period of decades.
The NRC published Areva's list in January 2017 identifying the 17 operational U.S. reactors with the at-risk components from the French forge. However, the federal agency did not disclose that Crystal River also installed a Le Creusot-manufactured replacement pressure vessel head during the October 2003 refueling outage and then operated the unit for nearly a decade before permanently closing.
"This information provides the incentive to do material testing on a component here in the U.S. from the suspect forge," Gunter added. "It is only common sense, when presented in effect with the corpse, that the NRC should autopsy Crystal River before the body is buried," he continued. "This is a chance to better understand scientifically what the potential risks are at operating reactors with Le Creusot parts rather than relying on computer modeling, simulation or speculation," Gunter said.
"For the sake of science and public safety, it is fortuitous that Crystal River, which operated for nearly a decade with a possible Le Creusot replacement component, is now permanently shut down and can be materially examined," Gunter concluded.
The carbon segregation problem was first discovered at the Areva-designed EPR reactor still under construction, and now well over budget and behind schedule, at the Flamanville Unit 3 in Normandy, France. French safety authorities are investigating and are expected to make a decision in September on whether to continue with the troubled Flamanville reactor which experts say does not meet the fracture resistance standards.
Beyond Nuclear petitioned the NRC on January 24, 2017 to suspend operations at the 17 affected U.S. reactors pending thorough inspections and material testing for the carbon contamination of the at-risk components and to open an investigation into the potential falsification of Le Creusot quality assurance documentation. To date, the NRC has accepted the petition in part for further review and in part referred the potential falsification of documents to the federal agency's allegations unit.
Only one affected nuclear plant, Dominion Energy's Millstone 2 in Connecticut, has conducted a visual inspection on a Creusot Forge component at the behest of the state energy authority, but did not observe any defects or cracking.
However, a French newspaper revealed last week that metal specimens harvested from the Flamanville Unit 3 reactor pressure vessel, and subjected to shock resilience testing, fell dramatically below regulatory performance standards. A newly surfaced memo (jn French) from a leading safety physicist at the prestigious Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Safety said that, if subjected to violent pressure-thermal shock, the EPR reactor pressure vessel could shatter. Such a rupture could lead to a major loss of coolant accident and subsequently a nuclear meltdown.
Beyond Nuclear aims to educate and activate the public about the connections between nuclear power and nuclear weapons and the need to abandon both to safeguard our future. Beyond Nuclear advocates for an energy future that is sustainable, benign and democratic.
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'More Unhinged by the Minute': Senior Israeli Lawmaker Suggests Nuclear Attack on Iran
"It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means," the hardline Knesset member and former Israeli defense minister said.
Jul 04, 2024
A longtime Israeli lawmaker and former defense minister took to the airwaves and social media on Wednesday to suggest his country should do whatever it takes to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
"It is not possible anymore to stop the Iranian nuclear program with conventional means," Avigdor Liberman of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party said during a Channel 12 interview. "And we will have to use all the means that are available to us."
"We will have to stop with the deliberate policy of ambiguity, and it needs to be clear what is at stake here," Liberman continued, apparently referring to Israel's refusal to say whether it has nuclear weapons. "What is at stake here is the future of this nation, the future of the state of Israel, and we will not take any risks."
Member of Knesset and former Minister of Defense, Avigdor Liberman, live on Channel 12, openly calls to use nuclear weapon against Iran, in order to prevent it from reaching weaponization of its nuclear program. What a fuckin' psycho. pic.twitter.com/NYGfQ1zqVp
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) July 4, 2024
When pressed on what he meant by stopping Iran with non-conventional means, Liberman said, "I said it very clearly."
"Right now there is no time to stop the Iranian nuclear program, their weaponization, by using conventional means," he added.
Liberman made similar comments on social media, where his remarks sparked alarm and condemnation. The lawmaker's hardline call comes amid powder keg tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran, which warned last week that any Israeli invasion of Lebanon—from which Iranian ally Hezbollah is resisting Israel's annihilation of Gaza—would trigger an "obliterating war."
According to the Arms Control Association (ACA), a U.S.-based advocacy group, Iran is a "threshold state," meaning "it has developed the necessary capacities to build nuclear weapons."
However, a February 2024 threat assessment report authored by the U.S. Director of National Intelligence stated that "Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device."
"Since 2020, however, Tehran has stated that it is no longer constrained by any JCPOA limits," the report says, a reference to so-called Iran Nuclear Deal from which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew in 2018 under former President Donald Trump. "Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced [International Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so."
Iran maintains its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, although Kamal Kharazi, a foreign policy advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
told the Financial Times earlier this week that his country would "have to change our doctrine" if faced with an existential threat.
The ACA and others estimate that Israel has around 90 nuclear warheads and fissile material for approximately 200 more.
Liberman isn't the first Israeli lawmaker to suggest nuclear war against Iran. Far-right Deputy Knesset Speaker Nissim Vaturi—who sparked outrage by saying Israeli forces are "too humane" in Gaza and should "burn" the Palestinian territory—said in April that "in the event of a conflict with Iran, if we do not receive American ammunition, we will have to use everything we have."
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Results from a new study "definitely point toward the need for environmental stewardship, and keeping PFAS out of the environment and food chain," a co-author said.
Jul 04, 2024
Common foods including white rice and eggs are linked to higher levels of "forever chemicals" in the body, new research from scientists at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth shows.
The researchers also found elevated levels of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in people who consumed coffee, red meat, and seafood, based on plasma and breast milk samples of 3,000 pregnant people. The findings, published in Science of the Total Environment, add to the mounting evidence of the accumulation of PFAS, which were developed by chemical companies in the mid-20th century, in the natural environment and the body.
"The results definitely point toward the need for environmental stewardship, and keeping PFAS out of the environment and food chain," Megan Romano, a Dartmouth epidemiologist and co-author of the paper, toldThe Guardian. “Now we're in a situation where they're everywhere and are going to stick around even if we do aggressive remediation."
PFAS are a class of 16,000 compounds linked to a wide range of adverse health conditions including cancer, with research ongoing. The chemicals' development and production went effectively unregulated for decades, but has received significant attention in recent years, with alarming studies coming out regularly.
3M, a consumer goods multinational that developed and manufactured many PFAS compounds, knew that they were accumulating dangerously in the blood of the general public, but concealed it, according to a recent investigation co-published by ProPublica and The New Yorker; the article was written by journalist Sharon Lerner, who previously reported on PFAS-related deception by 3M and Dupont for The Intercept.
Such corporations may yet face unprecedented legal action. As Steven Shapin wrote in the London Review of Books on Thursday, "It is thought that the monetary scale of American lawsuits against companies responsible for PFAS water pollution may eventually dwarf those involving asbestos and tobacco, considering that people are in a position to decide whether or not to smoke cigarettes but everybody has to drink water."
While much of the concern about PFAS has rightly centered on drinking water—in which they're found worldwide—that is just one of the ways the chemicals can get into the human body. A new study this week showed they can be absorbed through the skin.
Food intake is also a primary means of accumulation in the body, and the new Dartmouth study indicates which foods are the worst. The study doesn't explore why, though Romano discussed some possible reasons with The Guardian. Rice is likely contaminated because of PFAS in soil or agricultural water, while coffee could have PFAS because of various factors including filters. Animal products can be contaminated if, among other reasons, the ground that the animals lived off was treated with PFAS-fouled toxic sludge, which is used by farmers as a cheap alternative to fertilizer.
Even consumption of backyard chicken eggs lead to elevated levels of PFAS, and that could be because of the table scraps the chickens are often fed, Romano said.
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Oxfam Condemns Israel for Pushing Gazans Into a 'Death Trap'
"The areas Israel has defined as 'humanitarian' and 'safe' are, in reality, the polar opposite."
Jul 04, 2024
The global humanitarian group Oxfam condemned the Israeli military on Thursday for attempting to force hundreds of thousands of Gaza civilians out of the eastern part of Khan Younis and into overcrowded parts of the besieged territory with no guarantee of safety or humanitarian assistance.
"Pushing hundreds of thousands more people into what is essentially a death trap, devoid of any facilities, is barbaric and a breach of International Humanitarian Law," said Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam's Middle East director. "Yet again, we are seeing vast numbers of people being forced to flee under Israeli military orders, with no heed for their safety or dignity."
"The areas Israel has defined as 'humanitarian' and 'safe' are, in reality, the polar opposite, leaving families with the horrific choice between staying in an active combat zone or moving somewhere that is already desperately overcrowded, dangerous, and unfit for human existence," Khalil added.
Oxfam said its staff members who are sheltering in the supposed safe zones to which Israel has directed Gazans reported "medieval conditions," with people "camping in the streets" amid "rapidly spreading disease."
"None of the declared safe routes in Gaza are actually safe," the group said. "Israel's military has also systematically attacked civilians and aid workers, including in those clearly marked 'safe zones' and 'evacuation routes.' Israel has repeatedly failed to comply with international law, which compels it to take all possible measures to ensure satisfactory conditions of shelter, hygiene, health, safety, and nutrition, and that family members are not separated."
Oxfam's statement came days after the U.S.-armed Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued fresh evacuation orders for Khan Younis, a city to which many Gazans fled after Israeli forces began their full-scale assault on Rafah in May.
The IDF instructed people to move to al-Mawasi, a tiny coastal area that Israeli forces have previously attacked. The Financial Timesrecently described al-Mawasi as a "fetid, thirsty, and disease-filled refuge of tens of thousands of Palestinians."
Hours after issuing the orders, the IDF killed at least nine people—including three children and two women—in an airstrike on a home in Khan Younis.
The United Nations estimates that nine out of 10 people in Gaza have been internally displaced at least once since Israel began its latest assault on the enclave following a deadly Hamas-led attack in October. Some Gazans have been displaced as many as 10 times, according to the U.N.
The Washington Postreported Wednesday that while the European Hospital in Khan Younis is now "completely empty" following the IDF's evacuation order, "there are signs that many of the thousands who fled fearing the new Israeli incursion" in the city "are trickling back after being unable to find new shelter in the crowded parts of the Gaza Strip still accessible to them."
"For many in Khan Younis, this week's evacuation order was only the latest in a long string of forced displacements," the Post added. "Though the United Nations said up to a quarter-million Palestinians were affected by the order, some have already returned to Khan Younis, saying there is nowhere left in Gaza for them to go."
Oxfam's Khalil said Thursday that "the human cost of the military offensive in Gaza is unacceptable" and implored "all parties to push for an immediate and lasting cease-fire in order to end the bloodshed and suffering."
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