Opit's LinkFest!: 14 June - The Politics of Enrichment

Thursday, June 14, 2012

14 June - The Politics of Enrichment

English: AHMADINEJAD: IRAN TOOK STEP TOWARD IAEA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Image of worldwide nuclear weapons programs. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tokai Daini Nuclear Power Plant (02810451) (Photo credit: IAEA Imagebank)

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 44th week, 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"Man heckles Iranians demonstrating for Khomeini at police line in Washington, D.C." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Iran Hostage Crisis student demonstration, Washington, D.C. Title devised by Library staff. Contact sheet folder caption: Iran students demonstrate. MST. U.S. News & World Report Magazine Photograph Collection. Contact sheet available for reference purposes. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Washington Post - BlogTalkRadio (Photo credit: stevegarfield)

Egypt's high court nullifies parliamentary elections; military may take over lawmaking

U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa

Nuclear weapons just don't make sense - The Washington Post
May 23, 2012 ... By Walter Pincus, The Washington Post. Nuclear weapons are terror weapons, and basically unusable. That's one reason why no rational ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/nuclea…

Syria intervention isn’t a slam dunk MAY 30

Uranium Enrichment - Enrichment of uranium
The centre is to provide assured supplies of low-enriched uranium for power reactors to new nuclear power states and those with small nuclear programs, giving them equity in the project, but without allowing them access to the enrichment technology. Nuclear Fuel Cycle. Current & Future Nuclear Generation.
world-nuclear.org/info/inf28.html

Energy.gov - Department of Energy - DOE Offers Conditional Loan Guarantee for Front End Nuclear Facility in Idaho
The $2 billion loan guarantee will support AREVA's Eagle Rock Enrichment Facility near Idaho Falls, Idaho, which will supply uranium enrichment services for the US nuclear power industry. Uranium Enrichment Project to Create Over 1,000 Jobs in Idaho.
energy.gov/news/8996.htm – May 2010
Enrichment group to grow - EXPLORATION AND NUCLEAR FUEL
Nuclear Event Reports. This information service is supported by. Ukraine is soon to join the international uranium enrichment project set up by Russia and Kazakhstan. Diplomatic notes forming a deal for Ukraine's accession are to be exchanged.
world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24628 – Feb 2009
NRC - Uranium Enrichment
The uranium enriched in uranium-235 (U235) is required in commercial light-water reactors to produce a controlled nuclear reaction. The fuel for nuclear reactors has to have a higher concentration of U235 than exists in natural uranium ore.
nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/ur-enrichment.html

Talks Proceed on Proposed International Uranium Enrichment Centre - Iaea
The system would provide assurance of supply to States considering developing nuclear power and avoid the need for them to build their own nuclear fuel production capability.
iaea.org/NewsCenter/News/2007/russiatalks.html – Mar 2007

ORNL - Coal Combustion - Nuclear Resource or Danger
Although technically complex, purification and enrichment technologies can provide high-purity, weapons-grade uranium-235. Fortunately, even though the technology is well known, the enrichment of uranium is an expensive and time-consuming process.
ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html – Feb 2008

Institute for Energy and Environmental Research - IEER Factsheet - 700 Million Years - Uranium
Mandatory standards for decommissioning nuclear facilities including conversion and enrichment facilities are only now being developed by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
ieer.org/fctsheet/uranium.html
Iranians know their history

Walter Pincus JUN 11
When it comes to thinking about Iran and its nuclear program, it is important to remember the United States’ history in dealing with Tehran. Iranians do.

Majia's Blog

It Ain't Fog! Tepco Emissions Massive Today

June 1
By 3:14 the plant was being obscured by the emissions.

IAEA "Training" in Tokai????

NHK: IAEA training program begins in Tokai village

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/daily/english/20120611_25.html
http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/tokai.html

TOKAI is one of the reactors that has suffered damage. It is also the location for reprocessing of plutonium and has been for many years.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Iran

While I was reading about the history of nuclear power I came across an article published in The World Today vol 6 (12) in 1950.

The article is titled "The Present Situation in Persia"

The lead sentences are of special interest:

"With the continuation of the cold war, it is not surprisign that the eyes of the world should occasionally be turned towards Persia. Geography and oil have made it inevitable that she should play a part in the relations of the Great Powers quite of proportion to her position in terms of military and economic power." (p. 529).

Majia here: Iran has been the subject of western machinations for over 100 years. The ongoing drum beat encouraging the US to wage war against Iran is hardly new and the Iranians (a.k.a. Persians) are very aware of that fact.

Walter Pincus has an excellent essay in the Washington Post dated June 11, which describes the history of US intervention in that country.

Majia Here: Walter Pincus reminds us of the US legacy of interference in Iran. That interference produced the "blow back" that occurred with the American hostage situation under Carter.

Pincus: Fine Print Iranians’ past with U.S. colors how they see standoff over nuclear program. The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/2012/06/11/gJQA9wR8VV_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines_Tue

"...few Americans realize that the younger Bush was a latecomer to American attempts to control Iran’s government.

Recall the August 1953 military coup that overthrew the elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, an event that led to the 25-year autocratic rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

That coup was largely the result of a joint covert operation run by the CIA and its British equivalent, MI6. Within the United States, the overthrow was hailed the end of a potential pro-communist regime; for Iranians it ended the country’s drive to assert sovereign control over its own resources, primarily oil. It also smothered the country’s nascent nationalist movement and restored to power a monarch reliant on the West.

The 1953 coup “changed the course of democracy [in Iran] and led to dictatorships,” Mousavian said Monday in a telephone interview. But even more present in the minds of today’s Iranians, according to Mousavian, was Washington’s bias in the 1980s toward Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after it invaded Iran.

... In 1976, President Gerald Ford signed a directive allowing the shah’s government in Tehran to buy and operate a U.S.-built reprocessing facility for extracting plutonium from used nuclear reactor fuel as part of a multibillion-dollar deal to purchase American nuclear power plants. After 1979, according to Mousavian, the Khomeini revolutionary government decided against many power plants and the enrichment facility. The Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was begun in 1975 with German help, was halted in 1979, but restarted with the Russians in 1995 despite U.S. objections...."

[end excerpt]

, Japanese media reported that reactor at Tokai has leaked radioactive water and suffered a fire in Dec 2011 and Jan 2012
http://majiasblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/nhk-eu-to-defer-releasing-nuclear.html

"Low-level radioactive water leaks at Tokai nuclear plant "The Mainichi Daily Newshttp://mdn.mainichi.jp/mdnnews/news/20120320p2g00m0dm015000c.html
TOKYO (Kyodo) -- [excerpted] "Some 1.5 tons of low-level radioactive water leaked from a storage tank of a nuclear reactor in the process of decommissioning at Japan Atomic Power Co.'s plant in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency said Monday..."

Enenews: Fukushima Report Introduced by Top Official Hosono: “Other reactors are all in considerably severe condition” — 14 total; Dai-ni, Onagawa, Tokai — “Extreme situations, though not much has been broadcast” (VIDEO)
http://enenews.com/must-see-report-introduced-by-top-govt-official-hosono-actually-other-reactors-are-all-in-consi derably-severe-condition-besides-fukushima-daiichi-14-reactors-total-dai-ni-onagawa-tokai

Murata: "Lack of Ethics" True Cause for Fukushima ...

Mitsuhei Murata: Fukushima Plant "Not Under Control at All" By PanOrient News
08 June 12 http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/344-208/11818-mitsuhei-murata-fukushima-plant-qnot-under-control-at-allq

[excerpted] "The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant Number 4 reactor presents a security problem for the entire world, Mitsuhei Murata, Japan's former ambassador to Switzerland said.

Fukushima Daiichi plants are "not under control at all... and the situation with nuclear reactors in Japan is like vehicles being driven without a license," . . .