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Pipe crawler applies anticorrosive coating
08 December, 2011
A robotic pipe crawler has been used to spray molten metal on pipe interiors at Mexico’s Laguna Verde nuclear power plant. The robot improves uniformity of application and protects workers from radiation.
Exploring the leukaemia link
08 December, 2011
The latest report of the UK committee on medical aspects of radiation in the environment (COMARE) in May 2011 again finds no link between nuclear power plants and leukaemia in Great Britain; it also analyses results from the German KiKK study, which did find a link. An excerpt is reproduced here, together with responses to queries made since publication.
Blue bottles
07 December, 2011
A Japanese company has developed new radiation-fluorescent plastic, which could cut the production costs of scintillators, the core material used in radiation detectors.
Field test
07 December, 2011
A new UK training programme aims to give engineering students practical experience on a nuclear construction site and increase awareness of nuclear safety culture.
Improving temperature sensing for new reactors
07 December, 2011
Substantial improvements in high temperature measurement have been made in the last few years at national measurement institutes, which can be of benefit to the nuclear industry. By Jonathan Pearce, Michael de Podesta, Claire Elliott and Graham Machin
How would US units fare?
07 December, 2011
The United States is home to almost half of the boiling water reactors in the world, many of them the same era as the stricken Fukushima units. This article discusses how US BWRs might have fared under severe conditions similar to those experienced in Japan. By Salomon Levy
Unit 1 melted down; units 2&3 mostly unmelted
06 December, 2011
Not an afterthought
01 November, 2011
The transportation and storage subcommittee of US president Obama’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future published draft recommendations in May 2011. Its report makes the important point that nuclear sites need to start planning of nuclear waste transport long before the material is due to be moved. By Henry-Jacques Neau
Estimating the disposal costs of spent fuel
01 November, 2011
A software modelling tool estimates that the UK government may be undercharging energy companies for disposal of new spent reactor fuel in the UK. Other work uses multiple parameters to estimate the total cost of a repository.
Nuclear site redevelopment
01 November, 2011
Early planning for the use of a nuclear site after decommissioning can save cleanup money, and benefit the community. By Michele Laraia
L&T put the roof on
01 November, 2011
With over 450 welds, the roof slab for India’s prototype fast breeder reactor took the best part of a year to build.
The low-power SVBR 100
27 October, 2011
A reactor design originally used in Russian nuclear submarines can be linked together in multiple units to form a modular nuclear power plant. The safety features of its design, including the relatively small amount of energy/m3 of coolant, would prevent the kind of radiation release seen at Fukushima Daiichi, given similar initiating events, enabling its installation in towns and factories. By V. V. Petrochenko
A concrete history
27 October, 2011
Westinghouse is looking to use steel concrete composite (SC) construction techniques for its AP1000 reactor building. But while the technique is relatively new to the nuclear industry it has been extensively studied in the UK. By Bassam Burgan
Fukushima Daiichi crisis | Tsunami
27 October, 2011
Since the Fukushima accident there has been greater awareness of the risk from tsunami to reactors in seismically-active areas. It is important, however, to realise that tsunami include a wider range of phenomena that could impact a variety of nuclear facilities in different geographical settings. By Ian G. McKinley, W. Russell Alexander and Hideki Kawamura
Cooling Kudankulam
06 October, 2011
Without an innovative fish protection system that promises a kill rate as low as 20%, the service water cooling system of the new Kudankulam NPP would be choked by biomass from the rich waters of India’s Mannar Bay. By Kirill Mirjushenko, Ruslan Shakirov, Alexander Invanov and Vera Vishnevskaya
