General Electric (GE) provides to ENUSA, Spanish fuelmaker, with uranium oxide enriched in U-235. The material travels from USA to Spain in special cans mechanically sealed within a sea container. Upon taking out the material, ENUSA sends the empty cans back to GE in the USA. On 1997-02-05, the ENUSA fuel making plant located in Juzbado, province of Salamanca, dispatched a shipment of 150 supposedly empty cans to USA. Upon receiving the shipment, GE noticed on 1997-03-06 that there were 2 cans containing in all 102.42 kg of uranium oxide enriched on average of 3.5% U-235. Estimated activity of the material is around 8E+9 Bq, however outer surface of cans and sea container were found clean. GE informed ENUSA and American authorities. According to point IV-5-1-2 of the INES Manual, superseded for point C3.3 of the October96 addendum, "Permanent Loss or Discovery in an Inappropriate Location of Radioactive Sources" the event was rated level 1. Should the point IV-5.2.6 "Transport of Unirradiated Nuclear Fuel Material" be used the rating would also be that of a level 1.
Everywhere you look, the nuclear industry’s hype machine is in overdrive. Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and the UK government all tout small modular reactors as the silver bullet for climate change and energy security. Tech billionaires are hiring nuclear veterans. Wall Street is whispering about “round-the-clock power” for artificial intelligence data centers. For those old enough […]
Kernenergie en veiligheid: A wargame sought to test if a major radiological release that would prompt the evacuation of millions of civilians in South Korea could distract key US allies from assisting and rebuffing an all-out military invasion of Taiwan. The short answer was yes. The game originally presumed that China, wanting to keep the […]
Big batteries and EVs to the rescue again as faults with new nuclear plant cause chaos on Nordic grids The Finnish nuclear power plant Olkiluoto was finally connected to the grid last year, at an estimated cost of €11 billion compared to the original budget of €3 billion. That cost blowout forced its developer, the […]
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, […]
