On 24.09.2023, an employee of a company carried out a weld inspection in a radiation protection bunker using an X-ray device. After the measurement, the employee – who is also the radiation protection officer - went into the bunker to carry out further work. After completing the work inside the bunker, he realized that the X-ray device might still have been in operation during his stay. The immediate evaluation of the dosimeter provided a value of 71.5 mSv for September 2023. The dose measured with the dosimeter was above the annual limit of 20 mSv for occupationally exposed persons. The annual dose in 2023 before the event was 0.0 mSv. An expert inspection of the X-ray equipment determined that the equipment was technically in order. Therefore, it is assumed that it was not a malfunction of the device, but potentially a human error when operating the device. Further investigations are currently being carried out.
A vast subsea nuclear graveyard planned to hold Britain’s burgeoning piles of radioactive waste is set to become the biggest, longest-lasting and most expensive infrastructure project ever undertaken in the UK. The project [UK's nuclear waste dump] is now predicted to take more than 150yrs to complete with lifetime costs of £66bn in today’s money...The […]
Last year, the Dutch Province of Limburg started an alliance in which, besides the local government, research institutes, small nuclear reactor (SMR) developers, utilities, industrial customers and funders cooperated. With this "Limburg SMR alliance" Limburg tried to lead the way towards an SMR in Limburg. The preferred site for a first SMR would be Chemelot, […]
From the IPFM: During a visit to the Civaux nuclear power plant on 18 March 2024, France's Minister of the Armed Forces unveiled a plan to use the plant to produce tritium for the French nuclear weapons program. Civaux is a civilian power plant that belongs to and is operated by Electricité de France. According […]
An analysis by the Norwegian NGO Bellona of transborder trade operations with the customs code 840130 (irradiated fuel assemblies or fuel elements) show a more than twofold increase of import to EU countries of fresh nuclear fuel in cash terms – from 280 million Euros in 2022 to 686 million Euros in 2023. In physical […]
The French government has said it is "seriously" studying the option of building a plant to convert and enrich reprocessed uranium to cut its reliance on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine. The only plant in the world that currently converts reprocessed uranium for use in nuclear power plants is in Russia. "The option of […]
