An example is the concern of legislator Laksmiari Priyonggo of the Indonesian Democratic Party who is reported in the Jakarta Post as warning a meeting attended by activists, politicians and journalists of the possibility of the waste being dumped in the ocean along the way. She is reported as saying 'I think it would be very hard to keep track of the ship. The containers could even be empty by the time they reach Japan'.
The worrying aspect is not that such an unlikely thing might happen but that a person in her position of influence is so poorly informed about the nature of the shipment that she felt it necessary to express such views and, consequently, may be believed by those who heard her.
There are three components to the shipment: the canisters containing the vitrified waste, the transport flask into which the canisters are loaded and the ship carrying the transport flask.
The canisters
The high-level waste in the form of a powder is mixed with molten borosilicate glass and poured into canisters where the material cools and solidifies, thereby immobilising the waste.
Each cylindrical canister, made of stainless steel, is 1.34 metres high, 0.43 metres in diameter, holds 400 kg (150 litres) of glass and has a total weight of 490 kg.
The transport flask
Technically known as a 'TN28VT transport flask' it meets the requirements for Type B(U) packages specified in the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Transport Regulations and is licensed by the Japanese and French authorities. It is similar to the Type B package that has been used to safely transport more than 5,000 tonnes of spent fuel in over 140 shipments from Japan to Europe.
The transport flask, which is 6.6 metres long, 2.4 metres in diameter and empty weighs around 98 tonnes, contains 28 canisters and represents the waste from reprocessing some 40 metric tons of spent fuel.
The body of the flask is a 25cm thick steel cylinder forged in a single piece connected to a forged steel bottom by a full penetration weld. The thickness of the forged steel provides gamma radiation shielding while a layer of borated resin blocks between the forged body and a stainless steel envelope provides neutron shielding as well as contributing to gamma shielding, shock absorption and fire protection. Forty longitudinal heat conductors made of copper convey the residual heat power of the canisters through the resin to the external steel envelope.
Type B packages must meet stringent leak tightness provisions and satisfy mechanical and thermal (crash and burn) tests and a water immersion test. They are very expensive and not the type of equipment that would be dumped at sea.
The ship
The 'Pacific Pintail' is one of five purpose-built vessels for the transport of spent nuclear fuel. These ships are owned and operated by the British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) subsidiary, Pacific Nuclear Transport Ltd (PNTL). In 1993 the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) introduced updated regulations for ships carrying nuclear cargoes. All the PNTL fleet has received the highest classification which means they are regarded by the regulators as among the safest ships afloat. Three of the ships have been licensed by the Japan Ministry of Transport (JMOT) for the carriage of radioactive wastes.
To meet the JMOT requirement that they stay afloat after sustaining damage from collision or grounding they have been constructed with a double hull. The inner shell is formed by watertight longitudinal and transverse bulkheads which give the ship five separate cargo holds and sufficient reserve buoyancy with any two adjacent compartments flooded.
In addition the ship is equipped with:
Considering all the above factors and the 20 years experience of the shippers in transporting nuclear material more than five million kilometres by sea, without a single incident resulting in the release of radioactivity, there is no reason to believe the shipment of high level radioactive waste from France to Japan poses any serious health or environmental threat.
See also UIC briefing paper # 23 Japanese Waste Shipment from Europe and # 9 Waste Management and the Nuclear Fuel Cycle
ERA completed mining at Ranger No1 Pit on schedule in December 1994 and will now proceed with the development of Ranger No3 Pit which, subject to normal approvals, is permitted under the ALP's Three Mine Policy. Surface stockpiles of Ranger No1 ore, which currently stand at 19,300 tonnes U3O8, will be milled through to 1999.
Recently the Company completed negotiations with its Japanese shareholder customers for the renewal of a contract to supply uranium concentrates from the Ranger mine from 1997-2006. The contract replaces an existing contract which expires in 1996. Under the new contract the tonnage is maintained at 1000 short tons (907 tonnes) U3O8 a year. The negotiated price has not been disclosed but the Company says it is in line with prices for other similar long term uranium contracts with Japan. (ERA Half Yearly Report and Dividend Announcement 16/2/95; ENS News #71/95; Atoms in Japan, February'95)
Australia contributes to North Korea
The Foreign Affairs Minister, Gareth Evans, announced at the end of February that Australia would contribute a one-off payment of US$5 million (A$6.6 million) to the multi-national Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) as "an important contribution to global and regional security".
Australia is one of more than twenty nations invited to join KEDO formed to oversee the closure of North Korea's plutonium-producing graphite-moderated reactors, the sealing of its plutonium reprocessing facility, the safe storage and eventual shipment out of North Korea of spent fuel and the halt of construction of two new graphite reactors. In return for North Korea's agreement on the deal, reached between the United States and North Korea, KEDO will help construct two new light water reactors (LWRs) and will provide heavy oil to meet the country's power needs until the LWRs come on stream. The bulk of KEDO's US$4 billion (A$5.43 billion) budget over the next ten years will come from South Korea and Japan.
(AAP report 28/2/95; 'Australian Financial Review' 1/3/95) See also UIC briefing paper # 15.
Senate probes radioactive waste
The production, transport, storage, treatment and disposal of radioactive waste in Australia is to be investigated by the Senate. The motion by Senator Grant Chapman (Liberal, South Australia) for the establishment of a Select Committee on the Dangers of Radioactive Waste was opposed by the government, because it would duplicate activity already being carried out, but received the support of the minor parties in the Senate.
Senator Chapman, who is Chairman of the Coalition's Industry, Science & Technology and Small Business Committee, said he had serious concerns about the way in which the Government had failed to properly address the issue of disposing of Commonwealth radioactive waste. 'Some 50 temporary storage sites are currently being used by the Federal Government to store low-level and high-level radioactive waste. Some are located in residential areas and this is clearly unacceptable', he said.
The Committee is expected to complete its report by the end of the year.
(Senator Chapman's media release 9/3/95; AAP Canberra reports 9/3/95)
The Integrated Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Act of 1995 reaffirms that the federal government has an obligation to accept spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants for storage and disposal, beginning in 1998. The bill instructs the US Department of Energy (DoE) to develop a simple, safe four-part integrated spent fuel management system that includes:
The Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) has welcomed the bill, calling it a 'critically important' step towards getting the government to deliver on its responsibility to store nuclear waste on time. NEI says that without a central, temporary storage facility for spent fuel, consumers will pay up to US$5 billion (A$6.6 billion) more than necessary for their utilities to continue and expand on-site storage.
(NEI Infowire #95-17; ENS News #95/95)
Two reactors for decommissioning
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has approved the Yankee Atomic Energy Company's plan for decommissioning the veteran Massachusetts Yankee Rowe nuclear power station and has received for consideration a decommissioning plan for Consumers Power Company's Big Rock Point, Michigan, nuclear power plant.
Yankee Rowe, a 185 MWe pressurised water reactor (PWR) which operated from 1960-92, faces two obstacles before it can eventually be restored to a 'greenfield' site. Although the four steam generators, the pressuriser and other low-level radioactive material was shipped to a waste facility in South Carolina before it was closed to outside waste last June, further disposal of low-level waste is stalled because their is no facility available to Massachusetts. The other obstacle is the removal of the 535 spent fuel assemblies now stored in the spent fuel pool at Rowe.
Big Rock Point, a 75MWe boiling water reactor (BWR), is America's oldest operating nuclear power station. The reactor's licence expires at the end of May 2000 and owners are required by federal law to lodge a decommissioning plan five years prior to the plant's permanent closure.
As Michigan has no disposal facility for low-level radioactive waste and the federal government has no site yet for spent fuel storage, Consumers Power proposes holding the plant in safe storage for an extended period after final shut-down. The utility estimates this will last until 2026. Once a low-level waste storage facility is available, dismantling will begin and the site returned to a 'greenfield' condition in about three years. The plan proposes that fuel be removed from the reactor and stored in the spent fuel pool after final shutdown. It is anticipated that the spent fuel would be transferred into transportable canisters by 2005 for temporary storage and ultimate shipment to the US Department of Energy, which is responsible for the final disposal of spent fuel.
The total cost of decommissioning Big Rock Point is estimated to total US$290.1 million (A$392.5 million).
(NEI Infowire #95-15 & #95-20; NEI 'Nuclear Energy' Fourth Quarter 1994; ENS News #80/95 & #106/95) See also UIC briefing paper # 13.
Mescaleros change their mind on spent fuel storage
On 31 January, by a vote of 490-362, the Mescalero Apache tribe turned down a tentative agreement their Tribal Council reached last December with a group of 31 nuclear utilities for the construction of an interim commercial spent fuel store on tribal land (UIC Newsletter #1 January/February 1995). About two-thirds of the tribe's 1,200 eligible voters cast ballots.
Although tribal leaders had previously said they would not pursue the issue further if the tribe as a whole turned down the proposal, a petition signed by 710 members of the tribe led to the Tribal Council holding a second vote on 9 March. This time the Mescaleros voted 593-372 in favour of the proposal which is expected to create between 200 and 300 jobs on the reservation where one person in three is currently unemployed. The tribe numbers nearly 3,500 people, most of whom live on the reservation.
Wendell Chino, president of the Mescalero, and other tribal leaders had strongly supported the proposal which is estimated to earn the Mescaleros about US$240 million (A$325 million) over the next 40 years. Opponents of the plan, led by Joseph Geronimo, grandson of the legendary Apache warrior, argued that the proposed interim facility could be turned into a permanent one if DoE failed to licence and operate a permanent underground facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
(NEI Infowire #95-09,#95-18; ENS News #52/95,#94/95,#120/95; Nuclear Engineering International, March'95)
The reactor in Suffolk, south-east England, is the country's first PWR and the first new nuclear station to go into operation in the UK in almost six years. It brings to 35 the number of nuclear power reactors operating in England, Scotland and Wales which in 1994 produced around one quarter of the electricity generated in the UK. (Nuclear Electric 'Nuclear Times' Feb'95; Nuclear Engineering International, March'95; ENS News #49/95 & #73/95; The Guardian 1/2/95)
Scottish Nuclear and BNFL in &4 billion pound deal
Under a deal worth £4 billion (A$8.55 billion) Scottish Nuclear (SN) will purchase new fuel for its two nuclear power stations from BNFL at least until 2006 and will send spent fuel from its Torness and Hunterston B power stations for reprocessing at THORP or storage at Sellafield.
SN says it could save £45 million (A$96 million) a year by building its own dry fuel stores instead of sending the spent fuel to THORP for reprocessing but under the new deal with BNFL it will make equivalent savings and can therefore drop plans to build its own dry stores.
Robin Jeffrey, SN's Chief Executive, says the company is now well on its way to achieving the stated goal of 2.5 pence (5.34 cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) generation cost in 1994/95 and is confident that it can achieve 2.0 pence/kWh (4.275 cents) by 1998, making it competitive with fossil-fuel generators.
Meanwhile the government is reported to be considering two plans to reorganise the UK nuclear industry as part of its nuclear review. The Scottish Office is said to be pressing for SN to be given control of two of Nuclear Electric's advanced gas cooled reactors in northern England, thereby creating two similar-sized nuclear utilities. The Department of Trade and Industry is said however to favour the creation of a single national nuclear utility. (ENS News #99/95; The Guardian 30/1/95)
Nirex cultivates greens
UK Nirex Ltd, the company responsible for low and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal in the UK, is funding work at a research station in southern England to assess any effects on people who, thousands of years from now, may grow crops on land above an underground radioactive waste disposal site.
The study, which is part of the company's investigations to determine the long-term safety of a proposed deep repository for low and medium-level radioactive waste near Sellafield in Cumbria, is being carried out within the framework of an international project called BIOMOVS II. The work, financed by Nirex, is being conducted at a research centre in Berkshire run by the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine. It involves growing wheat in controlled conditions in soil in concrete tanks, with the water fed into the soil being dosed with different radionuclides.
Samples of soil and plants are taken for examination and compared with theoretical results obtained by the use of computer techniques under the BIOMOVS II program which is also supported by scientists from the USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Switzerland. (ENS News #86/95)
As a result of the oil embargo and increasing oil prices France launched it nuclear electricity program in 1974. Today, 75% of the nation's electricity, including non-Electricite de France generators, comes from the country's nuclear power reactors, 18% from hydro and 7% from conventional thermal.
The environment has also benefited from the nuclear power program. France has reduced carbon dioxide emissions per capita to 1.7 tonnes, compared with 3 tonnes in the UK and Germany and 5 tonnes in the USA. Emissions of sulphur and nitrous oxides, leading contributors to acid rain, have been reduced by a factor of five in the past decade. (Nuclear Canada, January'95; ENS News #51/95)
The floating plant would move from one location to another serving temporary settlements involved with the development of oil, gas and mineral deposits. It would operate independently and be towed away once a year to a centre for repair and maintenance. A start has already been made on examining the technical and economic aspects of building a prototype 50MW plant for the town of Pevek in the Chukotskiy region, in the far north-east. Minatom says the timescale for constructing the prototype plant at Pevek would depend on the rate of financing and would be between four and six years.
The second document approved by Minatom also deals with a prototype based on the KLT-40, which would be used primarily for district heating in the Murmansk region. The plant would have a total capacity of 300MW consisting of six 50MW units. Power from the district heating nuclear plant (DHNP) would also be used for manufacturing purposes.
Minatom says site selection for the DHNP depends on organisational matters, geological factors and the agreement of the local population. Construction costs would be 20-30% higher than a standard comparable plant. (ENS News #67/95)
Russia and China to assist Iran
Under an agreement signed in January in Tehran, Russia will help Iran complete a nuclear power plant at Bushehr at the northern end of the Persian Gulf. Started by the German company Siemens in 1975, but abandoned under instruction from the German government during the 1979 Islamic revolution and subsequently bombed during the Iran-Iraq war, the agreement provides for the installation of a Russian VVER-1000 PWR using as much of the existing structures as possible. Work is expected to start sometime during the first half of 1995 and be completed within four years. The agreement also covers the supply of fuel and the training of some 500 Iranian technicians in Russia.
In announcing the agreement Minatom indicated that apart from a projected second VVER-1000 at Bushehr Iran had discussed the possible purchase of two V-213 type VVER-440 reactors.
A similar agreement between China and Iran, which was signed in early 1993 and has been held up because of finance problems, is now expected to proceed. The project provides for two 300MWe PWRs, similar to the Chinese-designed reactor at Quinshan, to be built at Esteglal in the Bushehr region. (Nuclear Engineering International, March'95; Nuclear Canada, January'95)
Japan's nuclear power plants however are built on foundations of strong bedrock and are designed and constructed to cope with stronger earthquakes than have ever occurred in the regions where they are built. If a nuclear reactor in operation experiences an intense earthquake that exceeds previously set levels of seismic acceleration, it automatically shuts down.
The Kansai Electric Power Company operates 11 nuclear power reactors about 100 kilometres north of the epicentre of the Kobe Earthquake. At the time of the earthquake eight of the 11 were in operation. Immediately seismographs at each site were actuated and the motion of the bedrock recorded. None of the reactors automatically shut down however because the measured acceleration values were lower than the levels set for this to occur. At the Mihama power station, for instance, the measured acceleration value was 16 gal (1 gal = 1cm/sec2). The value would have needed to be at least 160 gal to have triggered an automatic shut down.
For the aseismic design of nuclear facilities with safety significance, earthquakes with a maximum acceleration of 360 to 405 gal at bedrock level are assumed. The nuclear plants are designed to shut down automatically at 160-210 gal.
(Nuclear Engineering International, March'95; Atoms in Japan, January'95 and February'95; ENS News #63/95, #66/95, #82/95) See also UIC briefing paper #20.
The union leaders argued that closing the country's reactors after an average of 25 years operation would mean a gigantic waste of capital. The total cost would be about 270 billion Swedish Krona (A$50 billion), equal to 1.5 billion Krona (A$281 million) per reactor, per year. The result they said would be higher electricity costs leading to increased unemployment.
An advisory referendum on nuclear power in Sweden in 1980 decided that no new reactors should be built and the twelve in operation or under construction should be phased out provided it could be done without damage to the Swedish economy. Later in 1980 the parliament decided that nuclear power should be phased-out by 2010. That decision remains unchanged but a special energy commission was set up by the government in mid-1994 to review the issue. The commission is expected to present its report by September and the parliament to make a decision in mid-1996.
Sweden currently obtains about 50% of its electricity from its twelve reactors.
(ENS News #62/95)
South Korea has three other nuclear power stations at Kori, Wolsong and Ulchin. Two more PWRs are being built at Ulchin and three Canadian Candu-type reactors are under construction at Wolsong. By the start of the next century, when all these are complete, South Korea will have a total of 16 nuclear power reactors. Currently nuclear power provides 40% of South Korea's electricity. (ENS News #61/95)
Major export deals with China
A consortium of South Korean companies has been awarded the country's first big foreign contract for heavy nuclear industrial equipment. Under a contract signed last month with the China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC), reportedly worth US$20 million (A$27 million), the consortium will supply reactor pressure vessels and their related components for the second phase of the Qinshan nuclear power station, near Shanghai. Phase two will consist of two 600 MWe reactors.
In a separate arrangement the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) signed a memorandum of understanding with the Chinese for joint feasibility studies for building nuclear power plants in coastal areas of China. A spokesman for KEPCO said the studies could lead to the sale of South Korean-made reactors to China. (ENS News #79/95; Asahi Evening News 14/2/95)
The broad objectives of the NPT are to: prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other than the five states that
In general terms the NPT has been regarded as a bargain between the states that had nuclear weapons and those that did not whereby:
In a timely move, the Centre for the Study of Australia-Asia Relations (CSAAR) at Griffith University, Brisbane, is about to publish a research monograph on the military and civil use of nuclear power in Asia, with particular reference to the forthcoming NPT conference. Written by Michael Wilson, a former Australian Ambassador to the IAEA, the monograph 'The Nuclear Future: Asia and Australia and the 1995 Conference on Non-Proliferation' is available from the CSAAR at a cost of $12 plus postage. Tel: (07) 875 7916. Fax: (07) 875 7956.
See also UIC briefing paper # 5.
UIC Briefing Papers
The Centre has produced, and is progressively updating, a series of briefing papers on specific topics relevant to nuclear issues. These are listed in the catalogue enclosed with this issue of the newsletter.