Footage shows damage to a walkway at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant after it was attacked by Russia.
The footage was posted by Energoatom, the Ukrainian state enterprise that operates all four nuclear power stations in Ukraine. It shows a hole in the roof of the walkway, a smashed window and damage to pipes, as well as what appears to be a shell casing
Overnight shelling at plant sparked fire that prompted Volodymyr Zelenskiy to issue stark warning
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been seized by Russian military forces, according to regional authorities, after a fire sparked by overnight shelling burned for several hours at the largest facility of its kind in Europe.
The Ukrainian state inspectorate for nuclear regulation said in a statement on its Facebook page the plant had been “captured by the military forces of the Russian Federation”, but added that employees were continuing to work on the premises.
Continue reading...Crowds of Ukrainians formed a barrier on Wednesday between Russian forces and a nuclear plant in the city of Enerhodar, blocking their advance. Footage shared on social media by a Ukrainian official shows people – some holding Ukrainian flags – assembled in front of and around barricades of cars, trucks, tires and sandbags. Enerhodar is home to Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe
Nuclear watchdog chief pleads with invading troops to allow workers to carry on ‘providing safety and monotoring radiation’ at Zaporizhzhia
The UN nuclear watchdog has voiced concern after Russian forces claimed to have surrounded Ukraine’s biggest atomic plant, and called for its workers to be left alone to do their jobs.
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said the Russian government had informed the agency that its troops had taken control of the area around the Zaporizhzhia plant in south-eastern Ukraine, the second biggest in Europe, housing six of the country’s 15 reactors.
Continue reading...Core meltdowns due to operational challenges cause concern even as direct strikes to facilities remain remote possibility
Concerns are mounting about the safety of Ukraine’s 15 nuclear reactors and the possibility of an ecological disaster in the midst of the Russian invasion.
Experts said that those reactors, at four power plants around the country, had layers of safeguards to prevent a catastrophic meltdown of their cores, but in a full scale war of the kind Vladimir Putin has unleashed, there was a heightened risk of those safety layers all failing at once.
Continue reading...Analysis: whether tapping other suppliers or switching energy sources, there is no quick and easy option to loosen Putin’s economic grip
As Boris Johnson told parliament that Europe must wean itself off Russian gas – to loosen Vladimir Putin’s “grip on western politics” – the Nikolay Zubov tanker was making its way back from British waters to the port of Sabetta, in northern Siberia.
The 300m-long vessel had recently dropped off a consignment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) at the Isle of Grain terminal, in the Thames Estuary, operated by the National Grid.
Continue reading...Oxfordshire scientists’ feat raises hopes of using reactions that power sun for low-carbon energy
The prospect of harnessing the power of the stars has moved a step closer to reality after scientists set a new record for the amount of energy released in a sustained fusion reaction.
Researchers at the Joint European Torus (JET), a fusion experiment in Oxfordshire, generated 59 megajoules of heat – equivalent to about 14kg of TNT – during a five-second burst of fusion, more than doubling the previous record of 21.7 megajoules set in 1997 by the same facility.
Continue reading...Brussels faces backlash and charges of greenwashing after publishing draft proposals on New Year’s Eve
The European Commission is facing a furious backlash over plans to allow gas and nuclear to be labelled as “green” investments, as Germany’s economy minister led the charge against “greenwashing”.
The EU executive was accused of trying to bury the proposals by releasing long-delayed technical rules on its green investment guidebook to diplomats on New Year’s Eve, hours before a deadline expired.
Continue reading...Activists including Greta Thunberg criticise ‘fake climate action’ in response to planned investment taxonomy
The European Commission is facing a backlash from Greta Thunberg and fellow climate activists over plans to include gas and nuclear energy in a “green” investment guidebook.
Both energy sources are expected to feature in the next part of the EU’s “taxonomy for sustainable activities”, which is expected at the end of the year, following a period of intense political bargaining between the commission president, Ursula von der Leyen; the French president, Emmanuel Macron; and Germany’s new chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
Continue reading...Tehran accuses Israel of ‘trumpeting lies to poison’ talks aimed at reviving 2015 pact
Iran sought to heighten pressure on western negotiators in Vienna through increasing its use of advanced centrifuges as talks on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal carried on for a third day on Wednesday.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reported on Wednesday that Iran had started the process of enriching uranium to up to 20% purity with one cascade, or cluster, of 166 advanced IR-6 machines at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant, which is about 20 miles north-east of Qom. Those machines are far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1.
Continue reading...Officials have announced that Kemmerer, population 2,600, will be the site of a plant featuring a liquid sodium-cooled reactor
A tiny city in the top US coal-mining state of Wyoming is set to become the home of an experimental nuclear power project backed by Bill Gates.
The new Natrium nuclear power plant will be located in Kemmerer, officials announced on Tuesday, and will replace a coal-fired plant that is set to close in 2025.
Continue reading...New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says her country was ‘not approached’ to be part of a new security pact between Australia, the UK and US. ‘Nor would I expect us to be,’ she adds. ‘The anchor of this arrangement are nuclear-powered submarines and it will be very clear to all New Zealanders and to Australia why New Zealand would not wish to be a part of that project.' Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has had a strict policy keeping its territorial sea, land and airspace as nuclear-free zones
EDF subsidiary reportedly warned of ‘imminent radiological threat’ at Taishan nuclear power plant
A French nuclear company has said it is working to resolve a “performance issue” at a plant it part-owns in China’s southern Guangdong province after an earlier report of a potential leak there.
Framatome, a subsidiary of the energy giant EDF, told Agence France-Presse news agency that it was “supporting resolution of a performance issue” at the plant. “According to the data available, the plant is operating within the safety parameters,” it said, adding that an extraordinary meeting of the power plant’s board had been called “to present all the data and the necessary decisions”.
Continue reading...The project in Wyoming – the country’s top coal-producing state – is a small advanced reactor that runs on different fuels to traditional ones
Power companies run by billionaire friends Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have chosen Wyoming to launch the first Natrium nuclear reactor project on the site of a retiring coal plant.
TerraPower, founded by Gates about 15 years ago, and power company PacifiCorp, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, said on Wednesday that the exact site of the Natrium reactor demonstration plant was expected to be announced by the end of the year.
Continue reading...Japan’s plans to discharge radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean is a callous act that would do catastrophic harm
Earlier this month, the Japanese government announced plans to discharge 1m tonnes of radioactive wastewater accruing since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011 into the Pacific Ocean.
To Pacific peoples, who have carried the disproportionate human cost of nuclearism in our region, this is yet another act of catastrophic and irreversible trans-boundary harm that our region has not consented to.
Continue reading...Fukushima plant operator Tepco suffers blow to plans to resume at its only operable atomic facility
The operator of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant has been prevented from restarting its only operable atomic facility after a series of safety breaches, dealing a significant blow to Japanese attempts to resume nuclear power generation.
Japan’s nuclear regulator is to issue a “corrective action order” on Wednesday that would ban Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) from transporting new uranium fuel to its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata prefecture or loading fuel rods into its reactors.
Continue reading...Environmental groups condemn plan to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water from the destroyed nuclear station in two years’ time
Japan is to release more than 1m tonnes of contaminated water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea, the government has said, a decision that is likely to anger neighbouring countries and local fishers.
Official confirmation of the move, which came more than a decade after the nuclear disaster, will also deal another blow to the fishing industry in Fukushima, which has opposed the measure for years.
Continue reading...Shutdown happened hours after Natanz reactor’s new centrifuges were started
Israel appeared to confirm claims that it was behind a cyber-attack on Iran’s main nuclear facility on Sunday, which Tehran’s nuclear energy chief described as an act of terrorism that warranted a response against its perpetrators.
The apparent attack took place hours after officials at the Natanz reactor restarted spinning advanced centrifuges that could speed up the production of enriched uranium, in what had been billed as a pivotal moment in the country’s nuclear programme.
Continue reading...There’s a touch of Hollywood in this dramatised account of the 50 workers who stayed at Fukushima Daiichi in an attempt to avert catastrophe
Dangerously high concentrations of politeness are observed in this dramatisation of the 2011 disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Not only do most of the heroic “50” left behind to avert nuclear catastrophe constantly apologise for underperforming in acts of barely believable self-sacrifice, at one point a manager begs forgiveness for refusing to allow two employees to re-enter the radioactive zone after a failed first attempt. To the feckless western mind more likely to view Homer Simpson as the standard-issue nuclear power-plant employee, it’s a relief when – just for a second – a few Fukushima workers contemplate running away.
It is possible director Setsurō Wakamatsu has taken the Hollywood route in portraying the staff as so infallibly courageous – though Fukushima 50 is adapted from journalist Ryusho Kadota’s book, which investigated the response to the earthquake and tsunami in more than 90 interviews. Possibly to avoid lawsuits from Tokyo Electric Power Company executives portrayed here as selfish and shamefully caught on a back foot, everyone in the film is fictionalised – except for prime minister Naoto Kan, though he is never referred to by name, and plant manager Masao Yoshida. Yoshida crucially defies orders and allows the reactors to be cooled with seawater – which prevented meltdown and the possible devastation of Japan’s entire eastern seaboard. The reactors also must be “vented” for pressure manually by workers agonisingly selected for the task. Played by Ken Watanabe as a man having the ultimate bad day at work, the simmering Yoshida looks in need of a similar intervention.
Continue reading...Danish company plans to fit ships with small nuclear reactors to send energy to developing countries
Floating barges fitted with advanced nuclear reactors could begin powering developing nations by the mid-2020s, according to a Danish startup company.
Seaborg Technologies believes it can make cheap nuclear electricity a viable alternative to fossil fuels across the developing world as soon as 2025.
Continue reading...