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World

How do you lose a radioactive capsule? Australian investigators are wondering too

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Brisbane, Australia
CNN
 — 

The discovery of a tiny lost radioactive capsule beside a remote highway in Western Australia raises many questions – not least how it escaped layers of radiation-proof packaging loaded onto a moving truck.

It’s one of the many puzzling aspects of a case investigators will examine in the coming weeks as they try to piece together the timeline of the capsule’s movements from January 12, when it was packaged for transport, to February 1, when a recovery team found it by the side of the road.

The capsule – just 8 millimeters by 6 millimeters – was used in a density gauge fitted to a pipe at Rio Tinto’s Gudai-Darri iron ore mine to measure the flow of material through the feeder.

Rio Tinto said in a statement Monday the capsule was packaged for transit to Perth, 1,400 kilometers (870 miles away), with its presence inside the package confirmed by a Geiger counter before it was transported by a third-party contractor.

Normally, the trip would take more than 12 hours by road, but roughly two hours in, the capsule exited the vehicle as it traveled south, and somehow crossed one lane of traffic, to end up two meters (6.5 feet) from the northbound side of the two-lane highway.

Lauren Steen, general manager of Radiation Services WA, a consultancy that writes radiation management plans, said industry insiders were just as baffled as the public when they heard the capsule was missing.

“The whole team were scratching our head. We couldn’t figure out what had happened,” said Steen, whose company was not involved in its disappearance.

“If the source had been placed in a certified package and transported under all of the requirements of the code of practice, then it’s an extremely unlikely event – one-in-a-million,” she said.

The truck thought to be carrying the capsule arrived in Perth on January 16, four days after its departure from the Gudai-Darri iron ore mine. But it wasn’t until January 25, when workers from SGS Australia went to unpack the gauge for inspection, that it was discovered missing.

In a statement, SGS Australia said it had been hired by Rio Tinto to package the capsule but it had nothing to do with its transportation, which was carried out by a “specialist transporter.”

“We performed the contracted service to package the equipment at the mine site and unpackage it following transportation using qualified personnel for our customer in accordance with all standards and regulations,” it said.

“The transportation of the package, organized by our client and delegated to a specialist transporter, was not within the scope of SGS services. Our personnel noticed the loss of the source at our Perth laboratory when opening the package and reported this incident immediately.”

The name of the company contracted to transport the package has not been released.

The missing capsule triggered a six-day search along a stretch of the Great Northern Highway. Then on Wednesday morning, a car fitted with special equipment traveling south of the small town of Newman detected a higher radiation reading. Handheld devices were then used to hone in on the capsule nestled in the dirt.

In Australia, each state has its own laws regarding the handling of radioactive substances and codes of practice that comply with guidelines set by the Australian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), a government body that works closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and World Health Organization (WHO).

In Western Australia, the rules are governed by the Radiation Safety Act 1975, which Steen says is well overdue for review. “It hasn’t been rewritten since the 70s, so I think that kind of speaks for itself,” she said.

Steen said over the decades technological advancements had made the use of radiation sources within mining equipment much safer – and because it was safer, devices were being used more frequently. As of 2021, over 150 projects were operating in Western Australia, the hub of the country’s mining exports, according to the state’s Chamber of Minerals and Energy.

Under the Radiation Safety Act 1975, only specially trained and licensed operators can package radioactive substances, but different rules apply to contractors hired to transport it, Steen said.

“Any transport company can transport radioactive material provided they have got the license to do so,” she said.

Under the act that license can be obtained by attending a one-day course and passing a test certified and approved by the regulator.

The licensee must have oversight of a transportation plan submitted to the regulator but does not have to supervise the journey in person. There are no rules about the type of vehicles used for transport.

Steen says clearly something went wrong – and she hopes the results of the investigation will be shared with the radiation community so they can avoid such issues in future.

Discussion has already started about the need for tougher penalties – in WA, mishandling radioactive substances carries a fine of just 1,000 Australian dollars ($714) – a figure described as “ridiculously low” by Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to reporters on Wednesday.

The rules around packaging radiation sources depend on how much radiation they emit. In some cases, the device could be encased in three layers. In the case of the capsule, the gauge could be considered one layer of protection before it was placed into an “overpack,” a container that was likely bolted shut.

In a statement, DFES said when the package was opened the gauge was found to be broken, with one of the four mounting bolts missing. Referring to the capsule, the statement added, “the source itself and all screws on the gauge were also missing.”

One theory investigators may examine is if the gauge broke and the capsule fell out of the overpack through a hole used to secure the lid.

It’s expected to be several weeks before the Radiological Council submits its report to the WA health minister. Meanwhile, Rio Tinto is carrying out its own investigation.

CEO Simon Trott said the company would be willing to reimburse the government for costs associated with the search – if requested.

WA Emergency Services Minister Stephen Dawson said the offer was appreciated but the government would wait for the outcome of the investigation to apportion blame.

He said he didn’t know how much the search had cost but at least 100 people were involved including police, firefighters, health department and defence force personnel.

Staff from the National Emergency Management Agency, the Australian Nuclear and Science Technology Organization and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency also took part.

On Thursday, relieved DFES officials released new images of the capsule being taken to Perth where it will be safely held in a facility.

This time, it traveled in a convoy of enclosed white vehicles – with big stickers warning of the presence of a radioactive substance.

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World

Exclusive: Biden task force investigating how US tech ends up in Iranian attack drones used against Ukraine

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Washington
CNN
 — 

The Biden administration has launched an expansive task force to investigate how US and western components, including American-made microelectronics, are ending up in Iranian-made drones Russia is launching by the hundreds into Ukraine, multiple officials familiar with the effort tell CNN. 

The US has imposed tough export control restrictions and sanctions to prevent Iran from obtaining high-end materials, but evidence has emerged that suggests Iran is finding an abundance of commercially-available technology. 

Last month, the UK-based investigative organization  Conflict Armament Research examined  several drones that had been downed in Ukraine and found that 82% of their components were manufactured by companies based in the US. 

Among the components found in some of the drones are processors built by the Dallas-based technology company Texas Instruments, according to an investigation by the Ukrainian Armed Forces and a source familiar with the US inquiry, as well as an engine made by an Austrian firm owned by Canada’s Bombardier Recreational Products. Both companies have condemned any use of their technology for illicit purposes. 

Their apparently unintentional ensnarement in Iran’s drone manufacturing industry underscores how inexpensive products intended for civilian use can be easily retrofitted for military purposes, and often fall just outside the bounds of sanctions and export control regimes.  

Texas Instruments said in a statement to CNN that “TI is not selling any products into Russia, Belarus or Iran. TI complies with applicable laws and regulations in the countries where we operate, and partners with law enforcement organizations as necessary and appropriate. Additionally, we do not support or condone the use of our products in applications they weren’t designed for. ”

Bombardier Recreational Products  said in a statement that it was launching an investigation into how the engines ended up in the drones.

The investigation has intensified in recent weeks amid intelligence obtained by the US that the Kremlin is preparing to open its own factory for drone production inside Russia as part of a deal with Iran, the officials said. 

Iran has already begun transferring blueprints and components for the drones to Russia to help with production there, CNN has reported, in a dramatic expansion of the countries’ military partnership. 

Agencies across Washington are involved in the task force, including the departments of Defense, State, Justice, Commerce and Treasury, with one official describing the inquiry as an “all hands on deck” initiative. The effort is being overseen by the White House National Security Council as part of an even bigger, “holistic approach” to dealing with Iran, a senior administration official said, from its crackdown on protesters and its nuclear program to its deepening role in the war in Ukraine.

But the drone issue is particularly urgent given the sheer volume of US-made components, many of them manufactured in the last couple years, that have been found in the Iranian drones Russia has been deploying across Ukraine against civilians and critical infrastructure. 

Conflict Armament Research found that the Iranian drones they examined in Ukraine in November had “higher-end technological capabilities,” including tactical-grade sensors and semiconductors sourced outside of Iran, demonstrating that Tehran “has been able to circumvent current sanction regimes and has added more capabilities and resiliency to its weapons.”

National Security Council official John Kirby told reporters earlier this month that the US would be sanctioning three Russian companies involved in acquiring and using the Iranian drones, and is “assessing further steps we can take in terms of export controls to restrict Iran’s access to sensitive technologies.” 

Much of that work has fallen to the task force, officials said, and among its first tasks has been to notify all of the American companies whose components have been found in the drones. Congressional staffers briefed on the effort told CNN that they hope the task force provides lawmakers with a list of US companies whose equipment is being found in the drones in an effort to force greater accountability by urging the companies to monitor their supply chains more closely.

The task force is also having to coordinate with foreign allies, since the components being used in the drones are not limited to those produced by American companies.  Conflict Armament Research also found that “more than 70 manufacturers based in 13 different countries and territories” produced the components in the Iranian drones they examined.

In October, CNN obtained access to a drone that was downed in the Black Sea near Odesa and captured by Ukrainian forces. It was found to contain Japanese batteries, an Austrian engine and American processors. 

Iran may also be acquiring near-exact replicas of western components from China, according to a study published last month by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security. “China plays a larger role than previously assessed in enabling Iran to manufacture and supply drones to Russian forces,” the report found. “It appears that Chinese companies are supplying Iran with copies of Western commodities to produce UAV combat drones.”

The White House believes it is successfully driving home the scale of the issue with allies. The senior administration official told CNN that there was “growing broad and deep international consensus on Iran, from the EU to Canada to Australia and New Zealand, which is being led by US diplomacy.”

There is no evidence that any of the western companies are knowingly exporting their technology to be used in the drones, and that is partly why the task force’s job has been so difficult, officials said. 

The task force has its work cut out for it in tracing supply chains for the microelectronics industry, which relies heavily on third party distributors and resellers. The microchips and other small devices ending up in so many of the Iranian and Russian drones are not only inexpensive and widely available, they are also easily hidden. 

Iran also uses front companies to buy equipment from the US and EU that may have a dual use, like the Austrian engines, that Tehran can then use to build drones, according to the Treasury Department, which sanctioned several of those companies in September. 

 That makes supply chain monitoring a challenge, though experts say US and European companies could be doing a lot more to track where their products are going. 

“American companies should be doing a lot more to track their supply chains,” said Dmitri Alperovitch, the former chief technology officer at the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. 

Keeping better track of resellers is a first step, he said, but the task is admittedly difficult because so many of these companies’ products are so commoditized and available off-the-shelf and online for civil purposes. Ultimately, neutering some Iranian front companies with sanctions and cutting off their supply from some western companies will be akin to “a game of whack a mole,” Alperovitch said, noting that they “can easily find another supplier.”

He added that the real “weak underbelly” of US policy when it comes to export controls is enforcement—and prosecuting the specific individuals involved in the illicit transactions. 

“We have to beef up the resources for enforcement of our sanctions to achieve the desired effect,” Alperovitch said.

“You can put companies on the [sanctioned] entities list,” he added, “but if you don’t actually go after the people involved, it doesn’t mean a whole lot.” 

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Business

US scientists reach long-awaited nuclear fusion breakthrough, source says

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CNN
 — 

For the first time ever, US scientists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California successfully produced a nuclear fusion reaction resulting in a net energy gain, a source familiar with the project confirmed to CNN.

The US Department of Energy is expected to officially announce the breakthrough Tuesday.

The result of the experiment would be a massive step in a decadeslong quest to unleash an infinite source of clean energy that could help end dependence on fossil fuels. Researchers for decades have attempted to recreate nuclear fusion – replicating the fusion that powers the sun.

US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm will make an announcement Tuesday on a “major scientific breakthrough,” the department announced Sunday. The breakthrough was first reported by the Financial Times.

Nuclear fusion happens when two or more atoms are fused into one larger one, a process that generates a massive amount of energy as heat. Unlike nuclear fission that powers electricity all over the world, it doesn’t generate long-lived radioactive waste.

Scientists across the globe have been inching toward the breakthrough, using different methods to try to achieve the same goal.

The National Ignition Facility project creates energy from nuclear fusion by what’s known as “thermonuclear inertial fusion.” In practice, US scientists fire pellets that contain a hydrogen fuel into an array of nearly 200 lasers, essentially creating a series of extremely fast, repeated explosions at the rate of 50 times per second.

The energy collected from the neutrons and alpha particles is extracted as heat, and that heat holds the key to producing energy.

“They contain the fusion reaction by bombarding the outside with lasers,” Tony Roulstone, a fusion expert from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering, told CNN. “They heat up the outside; that creates a shockwave.”

Even though getting a net energy gain from nuclear fusion is a big deal, it’s happening on a much smaller scale than what’s needed to power electric grids and heat buildings.

“It’s about what it takes to boil 10 kettles of water,” said Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College in London. “In order to turn that into a power station, we need to make a larger gain in energy – we need it to be substantially more.”

In the UK, scientists are working with a huge donut-shaped machine outfitted with giant magnets called a tokamak to try to generate the same result.

The missing mass converts to an enormous amount of energy. The plasma needs to reach at least 150 million degrees Celsius, 10 times hotter than the core of the sun. The neutrons, which are able to escape the plasma, then hit a “blanket” lining the walls of the tokamak, and their kinetic energy transfers as heat. This heat can then be used to warm water, create steam and power turbines to generate power.

Last year, scientists working near Oxford were able to generate a record-breaking amount of sustained energy. Even so, it only lasted 5 seconds.

Whether it’s using magnets or shooting pellets with lasers, the result is ultimately the same: Heat sustained by the process of fusing the atoms together holds the key to helping produce energy.

The big challenge of harnessing fusion energy is sustaining it long enough so that it can power electric grids and heating systems around the globe.

Chittenden and Roulstone told CNN that scientists around the globe now must work toward dramatically scaling up their fusion projects, and also bring the cost down. Getting it commercially viable will take years of more research.

“At the moment we’re spending a huge amount of time and money for every experiment we do,” Chittenden said. “We need to bring the cost down by a huge factor.”

However, Chittenden called this new chapter in nuclear fusion “a true breakthrough moment which is tremendously exciting.”

Roulstone said there’s much shows more work needs to happen to make fusion able to generate electricity on a commercial scale.

“The opposing argument is that this result is miles away from actual energy gain required for the production of electricity,” he said. “Therefore, we can say (it) is a success of the science but a long way from providing useful energy.”

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World

UK raises its windfall tax on energy companies and bets on nuclear power

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London
CNN Business
 — 

The UK government is hiking a windfall tax on oil and gas companies and extending the levy to electricity generators, as it scrambles to balance its budget amid an economic downturn. It is also investing in nuclear power for the first time in decades.

UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt announced the measures on Thursday while delivering the government’s medium-term budget, which laid out plans for higher taxes and cuts to public spending.

Beginning January 1, the Energy Profits Levy on oil and gas companies will increase from 25% to 35% and remain in place until the end of March 2028. That takes the total tax on the sector to 75%, according to the Treasury.

There will also be a new, temporary 45% levy on the excess profits of electricity generators over this period. In the United Kingdom, electricity prices are tied to wholesale gas prices, which means many power generators are also enjoying mega profits.

Together, these measures will raise £14 billion ($16.5 billion) next year and more than £55 billion ($65 billion) between 2022 and 2028.

There have been growing calls in Britain for higher taxes on the windfall profits of oil and gas companies, which have enjoyed record earnings this year thanks to rising prices driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At the same time, households and businesses are being squeezed by decades-high inflation as a result of spiraling energy and food bills. The annual rate of UK inflation rose to 11.1% in October, its highest level in 41 years.

“I have no objection to windfall taxes if they are genuinely about windfall profits caused by unexpected increases in energy prices,” Hunt said in parliament on Thursday. “Any such tax should be temporary, not deter investment and recognize the cyclical nature of energy businesses,” he added.

The United Kingdom will spend an additional £150 billion ($176.9 billion) on energy bills this year compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to Hunt. That’s the equivalent to paying for a second National Health Service.

Hunt on Thursday also extended government support for energy bills by another 12 months until April 2024, but said average households should expect to pay £3,000 ($3,451) annually, up from £2,500 ($2,951) currently.

As well as hiking energy taxes, Hunt affirmed a £700 million ($824 million) investment into Sizewell C, a nuclear power station operated by France’s EDF in the east of England.

The deal was first announced by former prime minister Boris Johnson last September and is the first state backing for a nuclear project in over 30 years.

It will provide power to the equivalent of six million homes for over 50 years and represents “the biggest step” in Britain’s “journey to energy independence,” Hunt said.

Hunt reaffirmed the United Kingdom’s commitment to a 68% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030. “Last year nearly 40% of our electricity came from offshore wind, solar and other renewable sources,” he said.

He added that from April 2025 electric vehicle drivers will no longer be exempt from paying car taxes.

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World

US State Department says Iran nuclear deal ‘not our focus right now’

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Washington
CNN
 — 

The Iran nuclear deal is “not our focus right now,” US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday, noting the administration was instead focusing on supporting the protesters in Iran as efforts to restore the nuclear deal have hit yet another impasse.

“The Iranians have made very clear that this is not a deal that they have been prepared to make, a deal certainly does not appear imminent,” Price said at a department briefing.

“Iran’s demands are unrealistic. They go well beyond the scope of the JCPOA,” he said, using the acronym for the formal name of the deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

“Nothing we’ve heard in recent weeks suggests they have changed their position,” Price added.

The spokesperson said the administration’s current focus “is on the remarkable bravery and courage that the Iranian people are exhibiting through their peaceful demonstrations, through their exercise of their universal right to freedom of assembly and to freedom of expression.”

“And our focus right now is on shining a spotlight on what they’re doing and supporting them in the ways we can,” Price said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in late September that he did not “see any prospects in the very near term” to bring about a return to the Iran nuclear deal.

In an interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Blinken said that “Iran has continued to try to add extraneous issues to the negotiation that we’re simply not going to say yes to.”

“We will not accept a bad deal, the response that they’ve given to the last proposals put forward by our European partners have been a very significant step backwards,” he said.

A senior State Department official said at that time that “we’ve hit a wall” because of Tehran’s “unreasonable” demands.

Speaking to reporters during the UN General Assembly, the official said the UN nuclear watchdog’s probe into unexplained traces of uranium found at undisclosed Iranian sites remained the key sticking point.

“At the same time as Iran is standing against its people on the street, it’s standing in the way of the kind of economic relief that a nuclear deal would provide. So I think they have to explain that to their own people why, on the verge of the deal, they would choose this issue and jeopardize at this point the possibility of the deal,” the official said in late September.

Amid the standstill on the JCPOA, the Biden administration has unveiled a series of measures aimed at punishing the regime for its repression of the Iranian people and to try to support the protesters.

In late September, the US announced sanctions on Iran’s Morality Police following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in their custody.

In a statement, the US Treasury Department said it was sanctioning the morality police “for abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protestors.”

Shortly thereafter, amid internet shutdowns by the Iranian government in the face of widespread protests over Amini’s death, the US government took a step meant to allow technology firms to help the people of Iran access information online.

Last week, the US issued additional sanctions on seven senior Iranian officials for the government shutdown of internet access and the violence against protesters, targeting Iran’s Minister of the Interior, Ahmad Vahidi, who oversees all Law Enforcement Forces that have been used to suppress protests, as well as its Minister of Communications.

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Science

Ignition confirmed in record 1.3 megajoule shot

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“Achieving the conditions needed for ignition has been a long-standing goal for all inertial confinement fusion research and opens access to a new experimental regime where alpha-particle self-heating outstrips all the cooling mechanisms in the fusion plasma.”

The papers outline the results from August 2021 that made the breakthrough possible.

The lab conducted experiments in the “burning plasma” regime for the first time, which set the stage for the record shot. Alex Zylstra, LLNL physicist, lead experimentalist, and first author of the experimental Physical Review E paper, noted in 2020 and early 2021.

“From that design, we made several improvements to get to the Aug. 8, 2021, shot,” he said. “Improvements to the physics design and quality of target all helped lead to the success of the August shot, which is discussed in the Physical Review E papers.”

Close up of atomic particle background science 3D illustration.

This experiment was then altered to include an improved target design.

“Reducing the coasting-time with more efficient hohlraums compared to prior experiments was key in moving between the burning plasma and ignition regimes,” said LLNL physicist Annie Kritcher, lead designer and first author of the design Physical Review E paper.

“The other main changes were improved capsule quality and a smaller fuel fill tube.”

Since their success last August, the researchers have been trying to recreate the record-breaking performance in order to understand its experimental sensitivities.

“Many variables can impact each experiment,” Kritcher said. “The 192 laser beams do not perform exactly the same from shot to shot, the quality of targets varies, and the ice layer grows at differing roughness on each target. These experiments provided an opportunity to test and understand the inherent variability in this new, sensitive experimental regime.”

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