Tag Archives: Nuclear Plant

Another Cyberattack Warning from U.S. Department of Justice

Important Takeaways:

  • Kansas nuclear plant was hacking target of Russian spies, Department of Justice says
  • A nuclear power plant in eastern Kansas was one target of computer hackers organized by Russia’s spy agency as part of a large-scale international operation to seize control over critical infrastructure assets in the U.S., the Department of Justice alleged in an indictment unsealed Thursday.
  • The agents are accused of computer fraud, wire fraud, identity theft and causing damage to the property of an energy facility.
  • The Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corporation, based in Burlington, is named in the indictment as one of hundreds of U.S. energy sector operations targeted by Russian intelligence.
  • Through their efforts, the agents allegedly used a spearphishing method to compromise the company’s computer systems in which they sent emails while posing as employees.
  • Between 2012 and 2017, the three Russian agents were allegedly part of a military unit that intruded computers and attacked supply chains.

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Iran says 60% enrichment meant to show nuclear prowess, is reversible

DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran began enriching uranium to 60% purity in order to show its technical capacity after a sabotage attack at a nuclear plant, and the move is quickly reversible if the United States lifts sanctions, the Iranian government said on Tuesday.

Talks in Vienna aimed at bringing the United States and Iran back to full compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal have been further complicated by an explosion at Iran’s main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Iran has responded by saying it is enriching uranium to 60% fissile purity, a big step towards weapons-grade from the 20% it had previously achieved. The 2015 pact between Iran and world powers had capped the level of enrichment purity at 3.67% – suitable for generating civilian nuclear energy. Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon.

“The start of 60% enrichment in Natanz was a demonstration of our technical ability to respond to terrorist sabotage at these facilities,” Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei told reporters in Tehran.

“As in previous steps (in curbing Iran’s commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal), … this measure can quickly be reversed for a return to the agreed enrichment level in the nuclear accord if other parties commit to their obligations,” Rabiei said, in remarks streamed live on a state-run website.

Tehran says the Natanz blast was an act of sabotage by Israel, and on Saturday Iranian authorities named a suspect. Israel has not formally commented on the incident.

Iran responded to the explosion by saying it is enriching uranium to 60%.

Iran and world powers have made some progress on how to revive the 2015 nuclear accord later abandoned by the United States, and an interim deal could be a way to gain time for a lasting settlement, Iranian officials said on Monday.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told visiting British Cabinet Office Minister Michel Gove that Iran should not be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon.

“Iran is undermining stability in the entire Middle East and the international community must act to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability. Not today and not in the future,” an Israeli statement quoted Ashkenazi as saying.

(Reporting by Dubai newsroom, Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Editing by William Maclean)

Greenpeace crashes Superman-shaped drone into French nuclear plant

A Superman-shaped drone crashes into the EDF's Bugey nuclear plant in Bugey, near Lyon, France, July 3, 2018. Greenpeace said it had flown the drone - piloted by one of its activists - into the no-fly zone around utility EDF's Bugey nuclear plant and then crashed it against the wall of the plant's spent-fuel pool building, to demonstrate its vulnerability to outside attacks, the environmental group said. Nicolas Chauveau/Greenpeace/Handout via Reuters

PARIS (Reuters) – Greenpeace crashed a Superman-shaped drone into a French nuclear plant on Tuesday to demonstrate its vulnerability to outside attacks, the environmental group said.

Greenpeace said it had flown the drone – piloted by one of its activists – into the no-fly zone around utility EDF’s Bugey nuclear plant, near Lyon, and then crashed it against the wall of the plant’s spent-fuel pool building.

“This action again highlights the extreme vulnerability of this type of buildings, which contain the highest amount of radioactivity in nuclear plants,” Greenpeace said.

France generates 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power in 19 nuclear plants operated by state-controlled EDF.

EDF said that two drones had flown over the Bugey site, of which one had been intercepted by French police.

“The presence of these drones had no impact on the security of the installations,” EDF said, adding that it will file a police complaint.

The drone stunt follows a series of staged break-ins by Greenpeace activists into French nuclear plants, which Greenpeace says are vulnerable to outside attack, especially the spent-fuel pools. These pools can hold the equivalent of several reactor cores, stored in concrete pools outside the highly reinforced reactor building.

Greenpeace says the spent-fuel buildings have not been designed to withstand outside attacks and are the most vulnerable part of French nuclear plants.

“Spent-fuel pools must be turned into bunkers in order to make nuclear plants safer,” said Greenpeace France’s chief nuclear campaigner Yannick Rousselet.

EDF said the spent-fuel pool buildings are robust and designed to withstand natural disasters and accidents.

Greenpeace’s security breaches have sparked a parliament investigation into nuclear security, which is due to present its report on Thursday.

In October, Greenpeace activists broke through two security barriers and launched fireworks over EDF’s Cattenom nuclear plant.

In February, a French court gave several Greenpeace activists suspended jail sentences while ordering the group to pay a fine and 50,000 euros ($58,300) in damages to EDF.

(Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Richard Lough)

Tunnel collapses at Washington nuclear waste plant; no radiation released

A 20-foot wide hole over a decommissioned plutonium-handling rail tunnel is shown at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Hanford Site, Washington, U.S., May 9, 2017. Courtesy Department of Energy/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James and Scott DiSavino

(Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium-handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, but there was no indication workers or the public were exposed to radiation, federal officials said.

Workers evacuated or took cover and turned off ventilation systems after damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle, officials with the Department of Energy’s Hanford Joint Information Center said.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, center spokesman Destry Henderson said in a video posted on Facebook.

“The roof had caved in, about a 20-foot section of that tunnel, which is about a hundred feet long,” he said.

“This is purely precautionary. No employees were hurt and there is no indication of a spread of radiological contamination,” Henderson said of the shelter order.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, Energy Department officials said. Energy Department Secretary Rick Perry has been briefed on the incident.

Tom Carpenter, the executive director with watchdog organization Hanford Challenge who has spoken with workers at the site since the incident, called the tunnel collapse worrisome and said the evacuation was the correct call.

“There is a big hole there and radiation could be beaming out,” he said.

“It’s not clear to me that they know whether particulate radiation has escaped,” Carpenter added. “If there is a cloud of radioactive particulates, then that can have an impact on worker health and the community. It does not take a lot for those particulates to end up in someone’s lung.”

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. Carpenter called it the most contaminated U.S. site.

Carpenter said he expects total cleanup costs could reach $300 billion to $500 billion.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle and Scott DiSavino in New York; Writing by Ben Klayman; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Workers at Washington nuclear waste plant take cover after tunnel collapse

The Purex (Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant) separations facility at the Hanford Works is seen in an undated aerial photo. The building has been vacant for nearly twenty years but remains highly contaminated, according to the Department of Energy. DOE/Handout via REUTERS

By Tom James

SEATTLE (Reuters) – A tunnel partly collapsed on Tuesday at a plutonium handling facility at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington state, leading authorities to evacuate some workers and instruct others to take cover, federal officials said.

Workers took cover and turned off ventilation systems after minor damage was discovered in the wall of a transport tunnel, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy said by telephone from the Hanford Joint Information Center.

The damage was more serious than initially reported, and the take-cover order was expanded to cover the entire facility after response crews found a 400-square-foot section of the decommissioned rail tunnel had collapsed, she said.

“The tunnel itself was breached. There was a 20-foot wide hole,” the spokeswoman said.

No spent nuclear fuel is stored in the tunnel, and no further evacuations have been ordered for workers, nor have any warnings for civilians around the site been issued, she said.

She declined to identify herself, citing agency policy.

The site is in southeastern Washington on the Columbia River, about 170 miles (270 km) east of Seattle. Operated by the federal government, it was established in the 1940s and manufactured plutonium that was used in the first nuclear bomb as well as other nuclear weapons. It is now being dismantled and cleaned up by the Energy Department.

“This is a potentially serious event,” said Edwin Lyman, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “I can see why the site ordered emergency measures. Collapse of the earth covering the tunnels could lead to a considerable radiological release.”

Lyman pointed to a description of the storage tunnels from a report from the Consortium For Risk Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation in 2015 about the Hanford site, saying there is quite a lot of cesium-137 and plutonium in those tunnels. Those are radioactive materials that can cause radiation sickness and death depending on the amount and length of exposure.

Mostly decommissioned, Hanford has been a subject of controversy and conflict between state and local authorities, including a lawsuit over worker safety and ongoing cleanup delays. The site has been described in media reports as the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States.

The evacuation did not affect the nearby nuclear power plant operated by Energy Northwest, company spokesman John Dobken said. The Columbia nuclear plant was located about 12 miles southeast of where the incident at Hanford occurred, he said.

(Reporting by Tom James in Seattle; Additional reporting by Scott DiSavino in New York; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Lisa Shumaker)

Chinese, Iranian firms to sign first nuclear plant redesign contracts

A view of the Arak heavy-water project 190 km (120 miles) southwest of Tehran August 26, 2006. REUTERS/ISNA/Handout

BEIJING (Reuters) – Companies from China and Iran will this weekend sign the first commercial contracts to redesign an Iranian nuclear plant as part of an international deal reached in 2015 over Iran’s nuclear program, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Thursday.

The fate of the Arak reactor in central Iran was one of the toughest sticking points in the long nuclear negotiations that led to the agreement, signed by Iran with the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany.

In the redesign, the heavy water reactor will be reconfigured so it cannot yield fissile plutonium usable in a nuclear bomb.

Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the contracts for the plant’s redesign would be signed on Sunday in Vienna with initial agreements having already been reached in Beijing, describing it as an important part of the Iran nuclear deal.

China and the United States are joint heads of the working group on the Arak project, and progress has been smooth, Lu told a daily news briefing.

“The signing of this contract will create good conditions for substantively starting the redesign project,” Lu said.

Iran has said that the 40-megawatt, heavy-water plant is aimed at producing isotopes for cancer and other medical treatments, and has denied that any of its nuclear activity is geared to developing weapons.

The announcement comes as U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Iran of “alarming ongoing provocations” to destabilize countries in the Middle East as the Trump administration launched a review of its policy toward Tehran.

Tillerson said the review would not only look at Iran’s compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal but also its behavior in the region which he said undermined U.S. interests in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

Lu, while not directly referring to Tillerson’s comments, said China hopes all parties could ensure the nuclear deal was implemented, appropriately handle disagreements and make positive contributions to nuclear non-proliferation and peace and stability in the Middle East.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Tsunami hits Japan after strong quake, nuclear plant briefly disrupted

A traffic jam is seen as people evacuate after tsunami advisories were issued following an earthquake, in Iwaki, Fukushima prefecture, Japan, in this photo taken by Kyodo November 22, 2016. Kyodo/via

By Yuka Obayashi and William Mallard

TOKYO (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake rocked northern Japan on Tuesday, briefly disrupting cooling functions at a nuclear plant and generating a tsunami that hit the same region devastated by a massive quake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in 2011.

The earthquake, which was felt in Tokyo, had a magnitude of 7.4, the Japan Meteorological Service said, and was centered off the coast of Fukushima prefecture at a depth of about 10 km (6 miles).

There were no reports of deaths or serious injuries several hours after the quake hit at 5:59 a.m. (2059 GMT Monday).

A tsunami of up to 1.4 meters (4.5 feet) had been observed around Sendai, about 70 km (45 miles) north of Fukushima, with smaller waves hitting ports elsewhere along the coast, public broadcaster NHK said.

Television footage showed ships moving out to sea from harbors as tsunami warning signals wailed, after warnings of waves of up to 3 meters (10 feet) were issued.

“We saw high waves but nothing that went over the tidal barriers,” a man in the city of Iwaki told NTV television network.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii said the tsunami threat had now largely passed.

“Sea level fluctuations may continue along some coasts of Japan over the next few hours,” it said.

The U.S. Geological Survey measured Tuesday’s quake at magnitude 6.9, down from an initial 7.3.

All Japan’s nuclear power plants on the coast threatened by the tsunami are shut down in the wake of the March 2011 disaster, which knocked out Tokyo Electric Power Co’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, spilling radiation into the air and sea.

A spokeswoman for Tokyo Electric Power, known as Tepco, said the cooling system for a storage pool for spent nuclear fuel at the reactor at its Fukushima Daini Plant had been halted. A spokesman said the cooling system had restarted soon after.

No other damage from the quake has been confirmed at any of its power plants, although there have been blackouts in some areas, the spokeswoman said.

Only two reactors are operating in Japan, both in the southwest. Even when in shutdown, nuclear plants need cooling systems operating to keep spent fuel cool.

Tohoku Electric Power Co said there was no damage to its Onagawa nuclear plant, while the Kyodo news agency reported there were no irregularities at the Tokai Daini nuclear plant in Ibaraki prefecture.

COAST EVACUATED

One woman suffered cuts to her head from falling dishes, Kyodo news agency reported, citing fire department officials. Japanese Minister for Disaster Management Jun Matsumoto told reporters about three hours after the quake that there had been no reports of significant injuries so far.

NHK showed footage of residents of Ishinomaki, a city badly hit in 2011, standing on a hill dressed in hats and heavy coats, staring down at the ocean. Several thousand people along the coast evacuated or were told to evacuate.

Earthquakes are common in Japan, one of the world’s most seismicaly active areas. Japan accounts for about 20 percent of the world’s earthquakes of magnitude 6 or greater.

The March 11, 2011, quake was magnitude 9, the strongest quake in Japan on record. The massive tsunami it triggered caused the world’s worst nuclear crisis since Chernobyl a quarter of a century earlier.

Nissan Motor Co said it would suspend work at its engine factory in Fukushima at least until the latest tsunami warning was lifted. A spokesman said there were no injuries or damage at the plant, which was badly damaged in the 2011 disaster.

Separately, Toyota Motor Corp said all its factories in northeastern Japan were operating as usual.

An Iwaki city fire department official said there was smoke or fire at Kureha’s research center in a petrochemical complex in Iwaki city at 6:17 a.m. (2117 GMT Monday) but it was extinguished soon after.  Other details were not clear, he said, but no other major damage had been reported in the city so far.

Japan’s famous Shinkansen bullet trains were halted along one stretch of track and some other train lines were also stopped.

One hotel in Ofunato, also badly hit by the 2011 quake, initially told guests to stay in the facility but later bussed them to higher ground.

Japanese financial markets were little affected, with Nikkei futures recovering after a brief fall and the yen up a touch against the U.S. dollar, although still near a five-month low hit earlier in the session.

(Additional reporting by Chris Gallagher, Jon Herskovitz, Osamu Tsukimori, Aaron Sheldrick and Elaine Lies; Writing by Lincoln Feast; Editing Richard Balmforth and Paul Tait)

U.S. Government Reveals Israel’s Top Secret Nuclear Program

The Pentagon has declassified a Defense Department document that reveals the extend of the Israeli nuclear program.

The release breaches an agreement between the two nations to not reveal Israel’s nuclear ability.

The move is seen as retribution by the administration toward Israel for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s address to Congress.  The document revealed Israel’s capabilities while blocking out the sections on the document related to France, Italy, West Germany and NATO nations.

The report states that Israel is “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level.”

The document says that Israel’s ability is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our [American] National Laboratories.”

The release is the first time the United States has confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power.

Iranian Nuclear Plant Explosion Kills 2

An Iranian “nuclear expert” is among two people killed after a major explosion at a nuclear plant.

Iran’s official news agency confirmed the blast, saying that it took place around 10 a.m.  in an “explosive materials production unit.”   Witnesses reported hearing the explosion several miles from the blast site.

The location is one that Iranian officials have refused to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit since 2005.  It is thought to be one of the locations where Iran is continuing to work on development of a nuclear bomb.

Israeli Internal Security Minister Yuval Steinitz told journalists last month that Israel had obtained reliable information the plant was carrying out secret tests on technology that could only be used for the detonation of a nuclear weapon.

Iran has been stalling in nuclear talks with western powers over its illegal nuclear program.  The deadline for a permanent deal is set to be November 24.

Fukushima Nuclear Accident A “Warning To The World”

The head of the devastated Fukushima nuclear power plant is warning that the 2011 meltdown should be a warning to the world to prepare for the worst.

Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Company, said the triple meltdown following the earthquake and tsunami should be taken into account when countries build new nuclear power facilities.

“Try to examine all the possibilities, no matter how small they are, and don’t think any single counter-measure is foolproof,” Hirose told London’s Guardian newspaper. “Think about all different kinds of small counter-measures, not just one big solution. There’s not one single answer.”

The interview came as the British government just signed a deal with EDF Energy to build a new generation of nuclear reactors in the country.