On 1 October 2019 at 8:00 (local) a notification by the licensee was received at the Ministry of Transport (MT) that a moisture/density gauge, model TROXLER 4640-B, containing Cs-137 (0,3 GBq) was stolen from a parked vehicle. The theft took place during the night, as the driver left the vehicle with the gauge inside parked in a public area in Bratislava-Podunajske Biskupice. The stolen gauge was successfully retrieved by the police forces on the same day after several hours and the device was found in the bushes approximately 4 km further away. The MT emergency responder verified visually the integrity of the package, the serial number and device model and carried out radiation survey to confirm the radioactive source. Since the device and the packaging were intact, it was concluded that there was no risk to the public.
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, […]
